It's 7:00 and the power's out again.  We just got back from the orphanage and it's weird to see all the shops that are usually lit up and blasting music, quiet and dark except for a few candles.  The atmosphere of the neighborhood is pretty different.  Greg is trying to scrounge up some kerosene so we can use his camp stove to cook dinner.  The power's gone out quite a few times since we've been here but usually it comes back on after about an hour.
Today was our second day working at the pre-school center in Majango.  We took the Dala-Dala into town and from there it's just a short walk, but you have to walk through one of the rougher neighborhoods in town.  By now we're pretty used to being called Mzungu, which is what white people are called here but literally means a person that walks in circles.  There's over 300 kids at the pre-school, although it didn't seem like nearly that many until we had to wash all their dishes from lunch.  The pre-school is split into three classes A, B, and C.  A is the oldest kids and C is the youngest.  The C classroom is pretty chaotic and there's a very pungent smell of pee in the air.  There's not enough seats for everyone so having a place to sit is a constant battle for the kids.     
There are 5 teachers and 2 local volunteers.  It's hard for educated people to find good jobs in Tanzania and people will spend years volunteering at school, hospitals and banks with the hope that when someone leaves they will be first in line to be hired. Despite not being the most equipped learning environment the kids that are interested really do well and anything is better then being out on the street. At the pre-school we worked in the B class, which is mostly six year olds. Today we finished working with the English sounds for the alphabet. A says aaaaaaa, B says baaaaa, that sort of thing. We also introduced the hokey-pokey and they tried to teach us a song about washing cars. It is great teaching the children, but with a hundred kids in a classroom and with our inability to speak Kiswahili it makes you wonder if we are more of a distraction than actually helping. Even if our attempts of teaching C says cah doesn't make it to the children, we are for sure helping to teach the teachers. One of the teachers we worked with had self taught herself English and wanted to teach the students English but she was not sure about English phonetics. As we danced around in front of a bunch of distracted kids she sat in the back and took notes on all we said. Its inspiring to see this young woman strive to better herself so that she can better the future generations of Tanzania. It is good to know that there are people like her that we are able to help.
It is suprising to see toddlers walking around alone in our neighborhood.  Most of the time they are with older siblings, but kids taking care of kids is as common as maize around here. Families tend to have many children, after a new baby is born the youngest child is turned over to the older siblings to be raised.  Dr. Greg and Teacher are doing so much and it's wonderful to be part of such a good thing.
We're not the only Mzungus at the Day Care though, there are about six women from Ireland that help with the older kids, they're pretty nice and much more fashionable than we are haha.
The electricity is still out, Brook and Jackie just finished making some killer spaghetti on a kerosene cook stove outside. We finally got some sharp knives which makes cutting vegetables much easier! We were using butter knives before... Which worked but took a lot more time and got frustrating. We'll keep you posted on our adventures! We have one more day at the pre-school and then we are heading off to the corn fields. Things are going good in Tanzania, we are all healthy and safe, and well fed! We love hearing from you guys too!