Life in Africa from Caleb and Annica

Hello from Africa- 

It has been a wonderful time here. It has been fun playing soccer at the International School. I’m starting to get the hang of it.  Yesterday I went to soccer and ran killers for about 1 hour! That’s the most exercise I have gotten since baseball. I have met a lot of kids my age here.

Me and Tobie playing soccer (football) at International School

Tobie and I were playing soccer out in the parking lot. He kicked the ball under a car. And this guard named Stillwater came and start telling us that “we were going to have to pay” and “if we have money” and “to be very careful.” He showed us this back corner that is really small and has a low fence the ball would fly over.  So I don’t know where we are going to play anymore. It maybe doesn’t matter since our ball got a big thorn in it and now is flat. I wonder how long a ball bought in Tanzania would last. 

Caleb

Hello everyone (from Annica),

We are all doing fine here and having a great time.  Market has been good too, this man named Solomon always tells me to come buy from him. So one day we did and he said, “Thank you for remembering me” and gave me a free green pepper. The first time I met him he told me about Baobab fruits (Baobabs are very very large trees) and he asked if I wanted to try one. I had tried one before and not really liked it so I said no. He is very nice (and has good green pepper for stir fry) we like to always go back to him for pepper, onion, carrots, and tomato.

Just yesterday I got to go RIDING; I never thought I would do that in Africa. The breed is an Australian stock horse (Farasi in Swahili). The horses only know English riding though, which was really weird. I had to get used to no neck reigning (a different kind of steering). They post when they trot and I’m used to sitting the trot which is almost impossible with an English saddle. I did not really know what I was doing at first but I got the hang of it pretty good. I rode a beautiful chestnut named Galaxy; he is only eight so pretty young. 

Galaxy.  Isn't she beautiful?

We rode through what they call the woodland.  It was just beautiful and amazing, no path and a million different kinds of trees. Everything was green and lush.  One of my favorite parts of riding is taking care of the horse, grooming and tacking up, which I could not do this time since I did not know how to tack up with an English tack. I did not bringing my helmet, so I wore theirs which was an English velvet covered one-so weird. I also did not bring my riding boots so I had to wear my tennis shoes which were terrible. The whole thing was super fun! How many American kids can say they rode an English horse on an English saddle with an English woman in Africa? Not many!  I am so thankful!

Me and Galaxy all tacked up and ready to go.

Bye bye everyone for now.

Annica