School Update

Today I taught my students how to draw self-portraits. Their pictures are so cute! The kids got so excited that I brought colored pencils. It’s great to see them so excited and all the kids returned the pencils at the end of class I didn’t even have to ask! They are so unselfish, so unassuming, I just love them.

I also brought a pencil sharpener today. The kids don’t have their own and neither does the school, so they sharpen the pencils using their little fingers so the pencils are dull with wood splintering off the sides of the pencils. They were so excited to see a pencil sharpener! They all WANTED to sharpen the pencils so I let them take turns. This was insane to me… I got to thinking about back to school shopping when I was a kid, picking out my very own pencils, pencil sharpener, colored pencils, crayons, notebooks and stickers. Here they lack even the basics, and what I can bring in everyone has to share. It’s a dramatic contrast which makes me feel exceedingly lucky – both to have had the privileges that I had as a child and to see firsthand what it is like not to have such material benefits.

A funny story – I was teaching and one of my star pupils jumped off the bench and ran up to me with his backpack and started hitting me with it! I was so startled and surprised I kept saying “kaa chini! Kaa chini! Acha! Acha!” – which means sit down, sit down, stop it, stop it. Well turns out there was a GIANT stick bug on me and he was trying to kill it! Eventually it fell off my back and on the ground, and the kid stepped on it. He’s probably my hero even though he’s only 4 years old!

I’ve had a few questions about school supplies: there’s a difference in terms of what can be sent to me and what can be sent to the school. The basics like pencils and paper that the kids would keep should be sent to the school, and extras like stickers and storybooks can be sent to my program. Of course you can send anything to either place and it will definitely get used!

My school:
Anglican Church
c/o Julius Simeo
P.O. Box 148
Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Cross Cultural Solutions:
Dana Vettel
Cross Cultural Solutions
c/o Zik Kundy
It’s so great to be developing relationships with the kids too. One of my kids, Naithfat, doesn’t have a backpack like the other kids. She brings her things to school in a torn black plastic bag. Another kid, Abdul, is so smart I can’t stand it! He should be advancing in school faster he already knows everything I am teaching the other kids. Nurdin is my know-it-all troublemaker but he’s super smart too so I am trying to create challenging assignments for him. My little star is Emanuel and he’s so sweet, he’s very quiet and well behaved and he tries so hard. It’s really sweet.

Alright time for lunch… bye!

Malaria Post

So… I was slightly unlucky in Zanzibar and I got sick one night most likely from the food. I was encouraged by my program after waking up feeling sick yesterday to go to the hospital and take a Malaria test. Thankfully my test was negative but it was an experience in itself.

This was a different hospital than I had been to before. I walked into the room which acted as a waiting room, patient room, and laboratory all in one. The technician pricked my finger and put the blood on a slide. After adding chemicals to it (I assume to reveal the malaria) I waited only about 20 minutes for the results. It was like watching a biology lab, the technician put the slide under a microscope and looked at it, taking notes on the lab report.

I am fortunate not to have contracted malaria. Despite preventative measures like mosquito nets, bug spray, and medication malaria is still contractible by foreigners and local Tanzanians alike. The disease is treatable in early stages but too often people slip into the second stage (past flu symptoms and headaches) into extreme fatigue, eventual coma, and eventual death. Malaria, like HIV and AIDS, is paralyzing Tanzania.

In Bagamoyo, the oldest person I have met has been only 50. Life expectancy is extremely low here – 42 – and the absence of an elderly community is visible. Malaria and HIV/AIDS are attributed as the main causes, and they link into other health issues like malnutrition and child hunger. My experience was a crude reminder to how vulnerable this population is and the amount of resources needed to reverse the negative trends it is shaping throughout the country.

Zanzibar

Zanzibar was incredible! What an amazing weekend! Wow where to start… we left Friday morning. To get to Zanzibar we took a taxi from Bagamoyo to Dar Es Salaam ferry terminal then a ferry from Dar Es Salaam to Stonetown, Zanzibar. The ferry over was really nice – it was low cost for us because we have Tanzania residence permits. Once we arrived in Stone Town we took another taxi to Kendwa beach, where our hotel was. The total travel time was 1 hour for the first taxi, 2 hours for the ferry, and 1 hour for the last taxi so around 4 hours total.

Kendwa beach is known as one of the top 2 beaches on the island of Zanzibar. It has powder white sand and turquoise colored clear water. It’s quiet during the day, calm ocean perfect for swimming. We never wanted to leave! I’ve never seen water so clear and the color turquoise was just something from a postcard, it didn’t even seem real. At night the beach cools off and there are a few bars where you can drink and dance. There is little light pollution and we were lucky to enjoy clear nights – the sky was velvet black and you could see so many stars – just dazzling.

We ate at our hotel and enjoyed everything from cheeseburgers to pina coladas to lobster and red wine. Our room was large, 3 poster beds (one for each of us!) and it was its own little bungalow. We could see the beach from our front porch. I highly recommend where we stayed (Sunset Bungalows) and the beach we stayed at in general (Kendwa). Zanzibar is a small island so to get to some of the remote, exotic beaches only takes 45 minutes to an hour’s drive. I want to go back and see Stone Town another weekend perhaps, which is its own unique experience, but I wouldn’t change a thing about my magnificent weekend in Zanzibar!

Hospital Adventure

I had another adventure yesterday! This time it was due to a toe – a silly little toe! Well 3 weeks ago when I was in DC for the Breakfast Club reunion, we were out in Georgetown and a girl stepped on this toe with a stiletto and it bled pretty bad at the time… well 3 weeks later it had gotten infected, yikes! Mama C, our “mom” at our placement was worried so I missed my placement to go to the hospital.

The experience was much like in the US – you go in, fill out forms, then you’re seen, then you’re treated. Everything was done carefully and slowly which was impressive. The surroundings and resources, however, differ dramatically from what we are used to in the United States. The appearance isn’t sanitary, mostly concrete and slabs, with very few medical resources. I wish they had more resources, more equipment and things.

The rains have come to Tanzania. It rains every day but not for very long! But it POURS when it rains. It’s the hardest rain I have ever heard! I love to listen to it under the tin roofs – it makes the coolest sound. Very peaceful. Most of the ground absorbs the rains so quickly, except for the roads – the potholes fill with water and the dirt turns to mud. Navigating the roads becomes infinitely more challenging – there are times I feel like we’re on a ride at a theme park, no joke!

I’ve learned that in terms of road etiquette, Tanzanians act very different from Americans. They honk when they approach another vehicle, people walking, bikes, etc. pretty much anything! But the honking is courtesy – you are letting them know you are coming so that they don’t accidentally step in your way. This is particularly helpful for children and animals and bikes when you are coming up behind the bikes on the road. Also it is quite acceptable to stop your car in the road to say hello to someone and other cars will just wait.

This is reflective of what Mama C calls “Tanzania Flexible Time” AKA TFT. Time moves slowly here and appointments and schedules have to be flexible, accordingly. For all of you who know me, this is taking some adjusting! I am so used to living by the clock especially in the US where you clock in and out of jobs to the minute! Here time is slower and people put a higher priority on relationships and community, stopping and spending time when you see someone even if you have somewhere to be. It’s interesting and in many ways valuable, just taking some adjusting to understand how it works.

We visited a “traditional healer” yesterday. He is a traditional African doctor, practicing banishing bad spirits and makes medicines out of roots, water, and other items you could find in the wilderness. It was an interesting experience! He acknowledged that he couldn’t cure diseases like TB, malaria, or HIV/AIDS. It honestly reminded me of when my little sister and I would make “potions” with berries and dirt in our backyard. It’s fascinating to see how there is a belief system surrounding these healers as part of the history and culture and it is very accepted. Western medicine of course exists in Tanzania, but it was unnerving to think that for an ailment you would go to a traditional healer – but it’s a reality, nonetheless.

I picked up my clothes from the tailor and I love them! I feel more assimilated into Tanzanian culture and the community every day which is a great feeling. I am fitting in as well as I can for standing out, the fact being I can’t change that I look different from everyone here. But I can do my best to be respectful of the community, knowledgeable about the language, customs, and norms, and curious to explore the art, singing, dancing, dress, and culinary aspects. There’s a lot to learn and I only have 10 and a half more weeks to learn it!

Until next time!

First Weekend in Bagamoyo

My first weekend in Bagamoyo was amazing! The painting above – I bought! It is beautiful and I love the colors. It was a steal, the art in Bagamoyo is all incredible and unique and is so inexpensive compared to art in the US or Europe.

Eva and I went shopping on Pemba street for fabric, then we went to a tailor named Pele who is custom making us Capri pants and skirts with African fabric. They are amazing! And the fabric is really light and comfortable in the hot Tanzanian sun!

Friday afternoon Nick and Eva and I spent 5 hours at the beach. The water is so shallow you can walk out for yards and yards and not go deep, you feel like you’re in the middle of the ocean but you’re only in up to your knees! The water is blue green and sparkles in the sunlight, it’s so relaxing especially after crazy days teaching the kids!

The down time I spent studying Swahili and trying to plan trips! This weekend Nick, Eva and I are going to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean. We are heading to the north part of the island to the beach of Kendwa, just near Nugwu. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, so I hope to post some amazing pictures next week!

Africa is incredible, I’m absolutely in love with the country and the people and the culture. My program is overwhelming yet at the same time I think it’s a great first step onto this continent. There are a lot of luxuries I enjoy – like internet, electricity, and security – that I wouldn’t get from another program. I battle at times feeling like I’m not immersed enough but then I go to school and walk the town and I feel much more in-touch. And I feel confidant that this will not be my last trip to this continent.

Until next time… baddaye!

TGIF!

Post

Some more fun stories!!!!

Okay so in Bagamoyo I have learned that dogs and cats are wild animals – we see them on the streets and out in the forest areas. What’s funny is, goats and chickens are domestic animals!!! Everyone knows which is theirs, they stay in the yard of their house: the goats can provide milk and the chickens provide eggs (and meat, of course, if the family chooses to do that). The people couldn’t understand having a dog or cat as a pet! They view them as scavengers, like vultures, who roam wild and eat scraps of food and such. I found this really funny.

The roads in Bagamoyo are all dirt. But see dirt roads I always thought would be flat and dusty. Not the case! The roads are extremely bumpy with huge wholes in them, the road is dirt and rock together. On the roads you will see dalla-dallas (buses), bicycles, people walking, and the occasional camel!

Fridays at my school are fun days – the kids play sports and I teach singing. The best part: class is held on the beach! So I was on the beautiful Bagamoyo beaches playing with the kids. The sun shines so brightly and even at 8:00 in the morning it has risen so high above the ocean that the water glitters, it’s blue-green and beautiful. My kids were fascinated with my sunglasses that I was wearing at the beach and wanting to learn new songs. I taught the Hokey Pokey which was hilarious – they didn’t really get the words to the song but they LOVED the motions especially when “you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around” – they are so freaking cute. I was teaching 90 today so I am pretty worn out!!

I’m starting to plan some weekend travel, in a couple weeks some of the volunteers want to go to Ngorongoro, a crater in northern Tanzania. It’s a small crater but one of the oldest sites of life in the world, with a variety of animals in one small place – lions, zebras, elephants, everything! On that trip I think we’re going to also stop by Mwanza, which is where you can see hundreds of flamingos on Lake Victoria. The weekend after that there is the Walk the World hunger awareness walk and I’m going to walk it in Dar Es Salaam with a couple other volunteers if we can get the details worked out!

Attached is my favorite pictures with my kids, it is us on the beach, and another teacher took it. I love them!

Drumming, Beadmaking, Carving, Updates!

Mambo!!!! POA!!!!

This is a greeting in Tanzania – it means “how are things” and poa means “cool!”. It’s common everywhere so I like to use it. Things in Bagamoyo are wonderful and intense, overwhelming and humbling at the same time. I feel fortunate to have this experience and the opportunity to share it with those of you who are reading.

Today I taught colors at my school. The kids had a harder time grasping them because they already know them in Swahili! I’m trying to get them to associate the new words (blue) with Swahili equivalents (buluu). I have good news, for those of you who have emailed me asking to send school supplies you can – directly to the church actually – and the address is below:

Bagamoyo Anglican Church
c/o Julius Simeo
P.O. BOX 148
Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Our cultural activities this afternoon were great! I learned how to do wood carving, bead making, and drumming! I was best at wood carving actually – I’m going to finish the piece I started tomorrow with the teacher! The teachers came from a little art school on our road – it is a small building but them make beautiful jewelry and play amazing traditional Swahili music. The teachers find orphans off the street and teach them these trades so that they have a craft and do not resort to other means on the streets. They don’t charge either, it’s free, and they buy the equipment and materials with the sales of the jewelry. Amazing cause and the guys are totally awesome.

I found out my school goes on summer vacation for about 4 weeks so I am going to go work with a women’s empowerment NGO during those weeks in the mornings. I can run my own project ideas and help out the organization. That starts June 12th and I will spend 4 weeks with this organization. In 3 weeks our cultural activities wrap up and we can add an additional placement. I’m going to be placed with UKUN, which is an HIV/AIDS organization that does home visits and research on AIDS in the area. It’ll be really challenging, sad at times, but important to the overall experience. I’ll spend 9 weeks with this organization.

Also, Nick, another volunteer and I are going to be presenting a discussion on HIV/AIDS in terms of the cultural and social attitudes and how to address them to the secondary students at the school we visited yesterday. The kids are really eager for us to come they have so many questions – everyone knows HIV/AIDS is bad but it’s taboo to talk about it, sex, protection, all these things. We’re going to the school in a few weeks and we will have a discussion with them about how to maybe affect change from the inside out, empower these students with knowledge about the disease, facts they can work with, and a discussion of the social attitudes we’ve seen ourselves. It should be really exciting.

More soon… I am having an incredible time here. Ninikosa familia na rafiki yandu (I miss my family and friends).

Lessons as a Teacher

I taught today, the first time, and it was really incredible. I felt like my students were just reciting letters and numbers but not understanding what they meant. So for English we did some letters - ABCD. I wrote them huge on the chalkboard, as big as I could. It was amazing as soon as I focused on teaching I stopped worrying about pens and pencils and paper. I pointed to letters and mixed up the order, then called on students to practice in front of the class. I felt so empowered at the end of the day! I bring stickers to put on the papers for good work and they just love the stickers! Some did the writing assignment twice just to get another sticker!

For math it was harder. Counting is in English AND Swahili and these kids are little, 4 or 5 years old! So I had 6 students in front of the class and started teaching counting by bunching the kids up and asking how many. Then we counted across in English and Swahili. Each kid in the class came up and did it too! One two three four five six! Moja Mbelli Tatu Nne Saa Set! It's hard to teach bilingual classes when I myself do not speak enough Swahili yet! The kids are so sweet though and they try so hard.

After class we went to a secondary school where I saw firsthand the troubles of Tanzanian education. Primary school is conducted in Swahili with English as a subject, but admission to secondary school and all classes are in English, with Swahili as a subject. Many don't learn enough English in primary to get in to secondary and once they are there they can't understand math in English when they were taught it in Swahili. There isn't a large supply of teachers who can teach in English so secondary ends up being taught in Swahili even though all exams are in English (all exams and syllabus are nationalized, something I actually really like).

Nick, another volunteer, and I are going to return and speak to the HIV/AIDS club. The kids are trying to stop the impact on the country and so we plan to host a discussion - about the biological realities and the social challenges of trying to change cultural and social attitudes towards the disease. The key is change from inward out, not outward in. Nick and I hope to empower the students and explain from our perspectives situations and offer our perspective from the USA.

Life is wonderful but crazy. More soon.... baaday!

First Funny Story

So, tonight was our cultural excursion to a traditional Bagamoyo house. Right before we're set to leave I run to the bathroom. The bathrooms don't have locks like ours, they are key locks. Well as I try to leave the key won't move - I am locked in the bathroom in the house! Everyone is on the van and getting ready to leave so I worry they will leave me and start knocking and yelling the Tanzania help cry "ooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeee"

They first try to get the key out of the door, to no avail. This carries on for about 5 minutes. Then they start to bang down the door. Mind you, I'm in a tiny bathroom and they are banging on the door with a wooden sledgehammer and kitchen knife. I hide behind the plastic curtain (like this is going to help) and cover my eyes. They broke it down after about 10 minutes and I was free!

Everyone on the bus was joking with me but they were all really worried! Definitely don't want to get stuck in a bathroom again....

First day at work

Today was my first day at school. I mostly observed and didn’t teach. My day starts at around 6:00am, get up and get ready. The group eats breakfast from 6:30 till 7:30 then leaves for our placements. I am teaching 5 year olds at the Anglican Day Care, so this is before the kids start primary school. I help Julius who has a large class of over 30 students.

The class takes place in a small church. The kids sit on pews, no desks or school supplies. There is a single chalkboard about the size of a bulletin board for the teacher to write on. All the kids have uniforms and have to sit quietly. There are no lights, no air conditioning, only one noisy fan. There is no sink only an outhouse for the bathroom, no toilet paper, just a bucket of water and a hole in the ground.

The kids are so loving and joyful that I am amazed. They are truly the light in the day. They all greet me “Karibu Madam Dana” and are all smiling and shy and staring (this doesn’t last long, the shy bit at least). I get to see the other classes, with the 4 year olds and 3 year olds. They are so little, the last class. They call me “Mzungu” but my class apparently knows better. I get to stand in front of the class and do the Simama Ka song. When they realize that this is what we’re doing they get so excited! Ruka ruka ruka (which means jump jump jump) we are ALL jumping and laughing. It’s a nice 5 minute break too.

The kids get to eat lunch at school, porridge prepared in a hut behind the school. Everything is so small. The kids get very small plastic cups that they must wash themselves when they finish. Many eat fast to try and get seconds until they run out. It breaks my heart a little.

Just like kids in the US though, my kids range in personality and ability, focus and interest. My oldest kids are twin boys and they are behind, I think they are also 6. I have several bright girls in the class. When they leave for break they yell “vroooom” which makes me laugh! It starts to rain while we are outside so we all come rushing back inside and they say “beep beep” to pass each other – some things don’t change!

The lack of resources is astounding. The kids are often missing shoes, don’t have any pencils or pens much less paper or books. Lessons are all done on the chalkboard and each kid is given a very small lined book to complete exercises. There is a bag with some pencils but no sharpener, most are dull, no erasers. I grade with my ballpoint pen I brought with me. There are no posters, no stickers, no desks. Outside the kids play with each other and many grab my hand.

This reminds me, last night Malica and I were walking through Bagamoyo on a walk. We were stopped every few feet, met a few people who spoke English. On our way back a kids soccer game was ending and the winning school ran up the street celebrating. They saw us and yelled “Mzungu!” and before we knew it we were surrounded by hundreds of kids all touching our arms and hands. I wish I had it on camera or a picture, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. We joke that we are famous only because we look so different, but the response is very loving. Those that can speak English say “welcome” or “we love you”

I really love it here and don’t want to leave…

Karibu Sana!

Hi family and friends,

Karibu sana! This is Swahili for welcome! I’ve heard it a lot over the past few days. The experience of getting to Africa is long but now that I’m here I can safely say it was worth it. The airport in Dar es Salaam, which is where I flew into, was very different. Very small, no air conditioner, all the stores were stands outside. The drive to Bagamoyo was long as well – we passed by shanty houses with tin roofs, so small and crunched together. Kids played with bike tires and there were no traffic lights, only dirt and stone roads.

Bagamoyo is an interesting town. The houses I’ve seen so far are mostly mud houses built into bamboo frame houses. Most are so small, smaller than my bedroom in North Carolina. Since Bagamoyo is on the coast I’ve also seen the fishing boats, and learned a little about the history. To this day there is a divide between the slave-trader descendants and the slave descendants. Intermarriage between the two groups is not encouraged and everyone seems to know who’s in which group. The slave-trader descendants argue their ancestors were just in good business at the time, and that the slaves got to travel to exotic places like the Middle East and the Americas. The slave descendants argue that families were separated, the labor was hard, you were not guaranteed or even likely to survive the boat ride there, and selling fellow brothers into slavery was not right. Thus the name Bagamoyo means lay down your heart, for if you got to the coast you were leaving on a ship and likely never to return.

The Cross Cultural Solutions house is nice – really nice – and the nicest in the area by a large margin. I do have running water but it’s not hot, so cold showers is the daily routine. Malaria nets are on each bed and you tuck it in around you at night. The rooms are reasonably spacious and have fans to keep things cool. The food is good and mango-passion fruit juice in the morning is my current favorite part of starting my day! There’s a bar around the corner with a thatched roof that you can enjoy a “Kilamanjaro” beer with your neighbors and other volunteers.

My reception so far has been mixed. I am called “Mzungu” by the children that see me, which means “white person!” in Swahili. They so rarely see white people that they will run after you. They know we come with cameras so they yell in English “take my picture” and jump around. They are really sweet and really cute. Everyone stares at you, because you look and dress different. The language barrier is hard but I’m trying to learn. So far there’s hardly any free time which has been the most exhausting part, I’m someone who likes my alone time a little very day!

The feeling that best describes the experience so far is overwhelming. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to see people living on less than 1 US Dollar a day. It’s hard to see people who can’t meet basic needs, like food, clean water, and medicine. Children with no shoes play happily with old busted tires and appear infinitely joyful compared to some of the unhappy spoiled children I have seen in the United States. I’ve seen people with no teeth, a missing eye, unable to walk, and children playing with machetes as toys. All in a matter of 2 days. The houses hardly seem able to withstand a breeze or rainshower, much less the monsoon season which is what we are in now. Yet they do, and it makes me feel eternally grateful and surprisingly aware of how happiness doesn’t seem to translate the more you have in terms of society. The people have so little yet offer to give so much – it is hard to relate to coming from the United States, where it is much more independence and acquisition of items for yourself and your family and friends. It’s not bad or good really, it’s just interesting. The people are quite content and I’m just starting to understand cultural norms and values.

Still the people are so giving, they invite you to their houses and some try very hard to speak English and they are patient with you as you stumble out phrases in Swahili. I use frequently “Jina lunga ni Dana, natoka Marekani” which means my name is Dana, I am American. I am often greeted with “karibu sana” or “habari gain” which mean welcome, or how are you. The rest is a work in progress. Common farewells are “badaari” which is just later and “tuta onana” which means we will meet again.

The art in the community is beautiful, everything is made here and we get to watch craftsmen make carvings out of black wood that are gorgeous and really beautiful paintings with bright vivid colors symbolic of Africa. The music is really fun, so far I learned this to teach at school:

Simama ka
Simama ka!
Ruka! Ruka! Ruka!
Simama ka

This means standup (simama) sitdown (ka) standup (simama) sitdown (ka). Ruka ruka ruka (jump jump jump), standup (simama) ka (sitdown). It’s supposed to settle the kids down. I’m going to try to use it tomorrow at school! I’ll be teaching English, Mathematics, Science, and Singing at the Bagamoyo Anglican Daycare with the 5-6 year olds. I have 50 students in my class so wish me luck!

Where Is Qatar?

I have been asked where is Doha.... here it is up close and on the map. Qatar is in the middle east, near Saudi Arabia and Oman. It's a really cool city. Check it out!

I flew over the desert on my way here... really neat! pics soon I promise!

Pic of Qatar

The Welcome to doha sign at the airport

The airport inside

Bon Voyage!!!!!

Hi All! I am in Qatar. It's actually a really cool place. The airport is super nice and the internet cafe is free (although it logs you off every 10 minutes so that bites).

My flight went really well, I got some sleep, it's 11:30 here so I'm thinking of getting some SLEEP pretty soon. I met a nice friend who helped me out with a phone card so I got to call mom! My layover is 14 hours which is REALLY long and it's overnight, so I'm expecting the airport to get really quiet and dead in about an hour and a half or so.

I can't believe I'll be in Tanzania soon! I miss and love you all and hope to post again soon!

Breakfast Club Reunion

I had a wonderful weekend in Washington D.C. with the breakfast club girls! We had so much fun! This was the highlight of the weekend - Cara got us a private tour of the west wing and we got to see what we think was the top of Barack Obama's head, we saw the Oval Office, Cabinet Room, Situation Room, and of course, the picture above is in the Rose Garden with the entrance to the Oval Office behind us. It was amazing, I felt so lucky to be there and enjoying the experience with my wonderful college friends!

My parents are now in town and preparing for leaving for Tanzania in just 3 days! It's hard to believe! I am so excited though and I know it's going to be an amazing experience. Unfortunately, my computer hard drive crashed last night so I lost all my cool pictures, all my music, all my papers I'd written this semester, everything. So I'm bummed about that but you know, there are too many other things to be happy about!

School grades are posting, I know I will NOT do well in econ and stats, but I did get an A in development and I'm expecting an A in policy analysis considering my grades so far, so I'm hoping to average out okay! Next year will be better.... lots of new things I am working on to make my life exciting and challenging, even in Durham!

I will miss all my family and friends... be sure to check the blog, I hope to update as frequently as I can!

Love, Dana