Month One!

Well I am well and truely settled in now, working at cornerstone and living with Zai, Seif, Lucy, Diane and Grant, it's quite a houseful. We ended up staying together because Nashir and Nathan had no host home so we gave them ours. I like living together, we have swahili lessons and the tasks of cooking, cleaning, washing and tidying (my strengths) are all shared and supported. At work I having been doing a stock take for the last week or so, I find it weirdly satisfying, (something i don't think it's great to shout about, it's not a usual hobbie) but I end up very drained in the evening and start thinking about how much my fork would sell for at dinner, very Sir Jack from "England, England". Me and Zai are getting on better, she is super super quiet and I can find that tough because I talk so much, but we rub along ok and so long as we keep talking about stuff I think we should be fine.
Because we have a houseful no one has much space, I am sharing a bed, a room and the living, dining, kitchen area is all very open so space is a little bit of an issue, especially when you can't get outside because it has rained so much there are streams running through the garden! But moaning over home life is great, lots of movies (Zai loves vampire movies, not my favourite thing in the world but we compromise) and swahili learning is really great. Me and Lucy have books and flash cards, we have sorted The human body, colours and fruit and veg this week, Zai and Seif just laugh at our accents.
The team as a whole are getting on ok, we had a team day on Monday where lots of issues we brought up with communication and effort etc, but nothing too serious. Homosexuality and the role of women are things that cause some serious cross cultural debates but no serious friction - I think I will find it hard in Dar es Salaam when I am exspected to clean the underwear of the men in my house - but at the moment because the team is girl dominated the boys wouldn't last two seconds if they even suggested it.
We have had loads of fun Socials and CAD's, I have been to the ballet for free, played football in Duthie park, dyed my hair red for a couple of days for Oxjam music festival and the Cornerstone disco (pictures will be up as soon as I can get hold of the right lead). Had a great halloween out dressed as the ace of spades and a witch and went to see "An American Wearwolf lost in London" (I think that is what it is called) and hit the town afterwards (Scotland has a SERIOUS drink problem, we were all shocked by the volume of very very very drunk people).
Heading down to Edinburgh for the day in a couple of weeks because we have been invited to the Scottish Parliment, we have our Mid Phase review next weekend (should be fun) and a tonne of other stuff too! I am in charge of two blogs at the moment, this one and the team one which is: www.gx-tz.blogspot.com have a look to see what we are all getting up to!
Anyway I am still in Cornerstone and the office is horribly empty because I have stayed late to use the computer so I think I will be off now to find food and home.
I hope I won't be too long in writing!
Hattie xxx