Greetings, friends.
We are in the final stretch of our three week language school in Arusha, and are ready for the Swahili grammar and vocab we’ve studied to sink into our minds and be translated into daily usage – which make take quite a bit more work. But we are encouraged, and feel like we’ve taken a big step forward.

The kids also have very much enjoyed their time. They have learned some Swahili, had some cultural experiences, and have seen MANY animals. So I thought I’d devote this blog entry to the animals they’ve seen roaming around our digs here in northern Tanzania, which may be a bit less common in America.

• Each day we see many monkeys of all sorts roaming around the grounds, swinging from the trees, running across roofs, and even occasionally entering rooms to search for yummy snacks. They have come up to within a few feet of us. There are bush babies, white monkeys and other varieties (I don’t know the names).
• We’ve seen HUGE birds that we call pteradactyls flying overhead and nesting in tops of trees around us. Their call echoes throughout the entire campus.
• Today the kids visited a local lake and Andrew saw a large python (confirmed by the teacher) swimming in the lake near him.
• The kids went to a local game park and saw giraffes, zebras, water buffalos, and other animals.
• We’re still keeping our eyes open for a rhino to stroll past our cabin, cause in Africa, one never knows what’s gonna happen!

We head back to Dar on Saturday, and are excited to use the Swahili we’ve studied and keep at the work to get to a decent level of fluency in the language.
Blessings to you as we continue on this road serving our King. Eric