Just and Little Rough Patch!

Oh wow. The past week and a half has been a blur. I think that as soon as I let go of my denial about Martha and the program I unleashed a sea of uneasiness and have perpetually felt as though I just woke up from a deep nap to find fifty huge papers due tomorrow. That sounds horrible, but I'm ok. A lot of good things have happened, but most of the past week was dedicated to painstakingly writing a letter to Arcadia laying out our issues and requesting (politely demanding) that they send someone from the US here right now. I wrote a draft and then the 8 of us sat down for an hours-long groups editing process. It was stressful and also amazing that we managed to do it. I was just about to send the letter - literally typing in the email addresses - when we found out (coincidentally) that the Vice President of Arcadia (who is also the head of the study abroad department) was arriving into Tanzania the next day.

She got here last night and I just met her an hour ago. We are having a dinner with her, Martha, and our professors tonight. The woman seems completely unaware of the fact that this program is far from wonderful. I asked her if we could have a meeting with her privately and she seemed to be caught totally off-guard (why you would need a guard against students asking that you do your job, I don't know...sorry, I may be totally wrong on that...but my point is if she was caught off guard she shouldn't need a guard :D ). She tried to figure out why we needed a meeting and we made it clear that we had specific things we need to talk about. She basically said, "Well, I will see you all at dinner," and ran out. I'm not going to lie and say I'm ok with that (in fact part of me is about to run to her hotel and throw-down), but I'm trying to stay optimistic. Plus we are going to insist. Anyway, this has been draining most of every one's energy and we have been sleeping a lot, getting sick, taking out our anger on each other, and talking about going home. But it's all going to be ok! I think this was just a rough week that will soon end.

On another depressing note, Melendy's grandmother died yesterday. I think she is having a really hard time not being able to help her family. Kaliya's dad works for Northwest and is going to try and find a way to fly her back for the funeral, but we don't know if that will happen. Her grandmother was in her 90s, but it is still tough and poor timing.

Surprisingly, I think we are all ok. There is hope that Nicolette (the Arcadia lady) will help us, and if she doesn't then at least we did all we could do (aside from telling the truth to Goucher when I get home - which I fully intend to do). Josh and I met with Roland (our internship advisor) today, and it's so exciting! I'm reading a book and writing a review for the African Foundation for International Law's yearbook, we are organizing and publishing all the AU and UN decisions in Africa, and I am going to be compiling everything that has happened in DRC and writing an analysis. We are essentially joining the team of people who publish this yearbook: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=33557 He is also just a cool guy in general and is probably going to have us over for dinner.

Today I am going to Emusoi and teaching the girls a soul line dance to a Sam Cooke song. It's kind of random, but I think it will be fun. I have extraordinary amounts of work to do with school, internship, and my thesis, but I'm kind of happy about it.

Anyway, sorry this was all about me. You are all missed.
Love,
Sarah