"It reminds me of the time I spent... in Idaho"

Homestay family! From L-R clockwise: Me, Happi (as in Happiness, and yes she is normally smiling and very happy!), Mama Happi (her real name is Susana, but introduced herself and her husband as Mama and Baba Happi), Megan (another SFS student, we went to our homestays in pairs), Johnson, and Kelvin.

Iraqw paintings. Absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures of the different styles of paintings, let me know if you want to see them!

Local artist Adam showing us the different types of paintings they do here. One of the styles of painting is called 'kisu" meaning knife, which is what they use instead of a paint brush.

One of the artists "kisu" painting. We have the opportunity to go and pay for a lesson and materials to paint out own painting today. I think I'm going to pass but definitely have my eye on some of these beautiful and colorful paintings!

Me, Megan, Happi, and Mama Happi washing the dishes after lunch. I got lucky and only had to rinse the dishes the two times we did them. I'll post more about the homestay next time I write a blog post.

When we went on the tour of Mto wa Mbu one of the stops was the town's rice fields. It's kind of a cool system, each family in the town can have a plot of the field if they want. I just think it's cool how GREEN it is here versus every where else we have been. The mountain line in the background is actually the Rift Valley Escarpment that we climbed up.

View from the top of the Rift Valley Escarpment. The houses and road you can see is Mto wa Mbu (see you can even see the rice fields from this far away!) and to the far right you can see the edge of Lake Manyara.

Iraqw wood carver. As you can see by the few figurines in front of this man, they make so many beautiful intricate carvings. The wood they use is usually ebony or mahogany and the carvings range from animal figurines to salad tongs to masks. 

Banana plant! So cool, isn't it? Looks like it's from Dr Seuss. And I'm trying the new motto of "Banana a day (or two or three), keeps the doctor away" because the bananas are so good here! There are also red bananas which are very tasty as well, a little more crisp... kind of like how you can compare a red and green apple to one another.