Mass and Town... by David S

Hello everybody! My name is David and I will be walking you through our day. Today was our first Sunday in Moshi and the atmosphere in town was a bit more mild. We walked in small groups to the Cathedral for Mass. Our goal was to be the first group to make it through the entire Mass without anyone fainting or having to leave during the service. The conditions seemed ripe for success; a relatively brisk morning, the service was in English, and the priest was moving through it pretty fast. Everyone made it just fine and Mass was very nice. There was a lot of energy and Rylee speaks for everyone when she says that the children’s singing was beautiful. It was easy to appreciate Mass and all the work that was put into it and it was interesting to see how differently things were done compared to church back home. After church, we split up again into the small groups and started walking around town. It was fun to look at all of the different shops and restaurants. Like I said, town was a lot less busy than usual. This really gave us a chance to walk through Moshi and take it all in. At one point, my group, consisting of me, Josh, Noah, and Leo led by Jon, had about 8 guys following us, trying to get us to visit their shops. We saw plenty of awesome artwork and carvings. Today was the first chance that we really got to barter with the shop owners. At first, a couple of us were a bit uncomfortable, but that goes away after your first buy. By the end of the day we were all pretty happy with our purchases, mostly on account of that ever so fulfilling feeling of buying that perfect gift for another person rather than yourself. When we got back to the lodge, we had yet another chance to buy some merchandise provided by the Jiendeleze Women’s group. The rest of the afternoon was designated to resting. No time was wasted here and most of us were passed out in our rooms until dinner. After another great meal, we had our nightly meeting recapping our day and talking about tomorrow. We will be visiting a secondary school and talking with some kids closer to our age. Personally, I am looking forward to this because I haven’t gotten a good chance to talk to people besides the merchants and fly catchers. In the afternoon we will be working with the Jiendeleze women to help them with some projects. I will let you read all about that in tomorrow’s blog and try not to spoil it. Goodnight and God bless!