Mrs. Toigo: Week 1

Well we have arrived on the island of Zanzibar after a great time in the Serengeti. We plan on being here for a few days to relax and get ready for our big journey down to the border of Tanzania and Malawi. Our trip has been great so far. Here is a little overview:

My first week as Mrs. Toigo, I....

slept more on an airplane than I have in my entire career of flying on airplanes combined

lost my luggage for the first time ever (lucky for us it was found the next day)

saw the tallest building in the world

ate camel, ostrich, ox heart and chicken liver

watched people walk home to the slum in Nairobi (Africa's second largest slum)

slept in a tent in the Serengeti

have learned that it does in fact rain down in Africa

went 4 days without a shower. 7 without shaving my legs.

waved at Maasai people from the window of our land cruiser

peed in a hole in the ground next to a bat hanging from the ceiling

stood so close to lions I could have pet them

watched cheetah babies playing in the grass

flew alongside Mt. Kilimanjaro

I guess that about sums it up so far. Tomorrow we plan on taking a "spice tour" of Stone Town in Zanzibar. After that we will hop in a car that will take us here to the beach a few hours away. Hooray for sun and warm weather.

what's in a name?

Why Spaghetti and Peteballs you ask? I will tell you. It was really Pete's older sister Sarah's ingenious discovery. But first a little bit of background dating back to our days in Korea. While we were teaching over there, Pete had a really fun group of boys in one of his classes. They always came up with little English phrases that poked fun at their own ability (or shall I say inability) to speak English. For example, when asked "how are you?" They would respond with "pineapple" because it reminded them of the common answer "fine". Apparently my name, Stefanie, also reminded them of the word spaghetti. So they walked around the school halls calling me Spaghetti Teecha. Well, it stuck. Pretty soon my own classes were calling me Spaghetti... which eventually followed me home to North America where I still hear it from time to time.

So just a few months ago, long after we had returned home from Hangul, Sarah was driving in her car... calls me laughing... and says she has come up with a nickname for both Pete and I. "Spaghetti and Peteballs". Clean simple humor. In fact, it is like one of those good old dad jokes... corny yet somehow funny. Get your mind out of the gutter.