So classes have started! Yay!!

After the initial week of nothing happening, things slowly got started. The second week only two of my classes started, the third week I had three. The fourth week I started my fourth class, but with all of the rearranging of schedules I had to drop one of the earlier ones because of conflicting class times.

Now in the 7th week of classes I finally have all of mine in place. I am taking: Race, Class and Ethnicity; Medical Sociology and Anthropology; African Literature and Foundations of Textile Design.

The week of October 20th was a bit of a mess here. One of our students was involved in an attack on campus. She is physically ok, but we spent the week taking care of her and trying to get her the help that she needed while working on improving campus security.

On Wednesday our professor Lori and another staff member at Luther flew out to help us deal with the situation and throw their weight around campus to get things moving. They got a lot done, and talked to several important people who will continue to push the university to improve safety and security on campus.

Unfortunately the student who was involved in the incident ended up going home. I think that it was all for the best, but it was hard to say good-bye to one of my best friends here. She will definitely be missed.

Having said good-bye to her, I’m realizing that my time here is almost up too. I only have 6 weekends left – and still so many things that I want to do! This week on either Wednesday (after we watch the election results come in at the American embassy) or Thursday I am going with a couple other students to Uganda to do some white-water rafting… in the Nile!

I’m excited to get away from Dar for a little while, and to have a break from campus. As long as I’m not eaten by crocodiles or hippopotami it should be an amazing experience! For the record I am a little nervous about the creatures of the Nile, but I highly doubt that crocs and hippos enjoy hanging out in white water rapids…

And of course leaving the country to should create plenty of exciting to stories to share - so hopefully I will be better about updating my blog with stories for you all in a timelier manner!