The Great Wazungu Soccerball Giveaway-

Thanks to Ruth’s MAMAW and to my MOM for sending us some soccer balls to give away to the Katarukila village. You ladies are the best- also, thanks for the books and the food! Thanks to Ruth’s mom Sarah, her aunts Janet and Carolyn (great stuff just arrived), our bud Lydia and my sister Sheila for also sending absolutely critical treats for survival! We haven’t received other packages although we know that more of our friends have sent soccer balls, but the post is slow and will surely get here eventually. There is a field near our house where I played soccer-poorly and embarrassing our country-last week and I’ll bring the next ball that arrives over to there. Those guys are going to freak. The people here have a passionate love for the game, but lack proper equipment for various reasons which probably would take volumes of books and a more qualified person to explain but boils down to- no dinero. Yeah but didn’t Pele, one of the greatest players of all time, learn to play soccer using oranges? He didn’t have a ball either. That’s a wonderful democratizing factor with soccer and is probably one of the reasons why the World Cup is like the biggest sporting tournament. It’s awesome to see tiny poor countries battle against economic giants for world (soccer) domination on a level playing field. Well, regardless of whether Katarukila NEEDS soccer balls to enjoy the game, they definitely WANT them. Ruth and I are happy to donate a few things like school supplies and balls to the village because this where Ruth hires her guides, where we park our car and next to the forest where we study the Colobus. We want to be on good terms.

Mom- I gave one of the balls that you sent me to the kids that hang out near our car:



They were so excited that there was a little bit of a kid fight (click to play the video):



We got it all straightened out eventually and the ball was given to the oldest boy to be in charge of.

Ruth’s Mamaw- We brought the two soccer balls out to the Katarukila team practice on Sunday. The larger ball we gave to the team (which Ruth’s forest guide Alan also plays on), and the smaller one we asked to be given to the youth team. Here are a couple photos of the practice:





These guys have serious practice every day and they’re good (click to play the video).



Well, that was fun. Some other news:

Ruth’s buddy from D.C., Drew is visiting for three weeks and he fell asleep on top of a nest of Ciafu ants (hehehehe…) the day before yesterday. Unbelievably and thankfully he was totally fine and so we can laugh.

Ruth’s shangazi (aunt) Carolyn has posted a great story about her recent visit and travails of Tanzanian bus travel on her new blog! Check it out at: http://key-to-ki.blogspot.com

There was a big fruit bat in the tree out front last week. It was injured and might have just been attacked by an eagle which swooped over the house after something right before we saw the bat fly up. We happened to be on the porch birding during the excitement.



Also, a ginormous lizard ran through the front yard and I barely had time to snap this action shot. We’ve been warned by the locals to lookout for these when we walk around at night. Don’t know what that means exactly but I wouldn’t want to step on one.



That’s about it, except the Mdudu of the day of course! I’m sure there are many of you readers out there who look forward to the mdudu as the highlight of each post. And so I have labored to prepare this close-up video of an armored caterpillar worm feeding frenzy just for you (click the video to play).