Waterfalls and Coffee Tour

So I'm feeling better still today, so that's good. Today we did the waterfall/coffee tour with Living and Amani. Amani is Living's best friend. He started Jipemoyo, which is a center for women with HIV/AIDS and a school for their children to attend. Amani also volunteers with us at CCS, and CCS volunteers go to Jipemoyo to help him. These boys have already done so much with their lives. They take people on these tours to earn extra money to pay for their schools. We drove into an area with a lot of Chagga people. We had a local guy who is friends with the boys who lives in the Chagga village take us on a narrow path for about a 1/2 hour walk to the waterfall. It was the most beautiful waterfall we've seen on our trip yet. It was super high and lots of rocks throughout the cliff it was falling on so there was a lot of that effect of the water hitting smaller rocks on the way down. Super pretty. There was also a cave on the left side at the bottom where Chagga women and children hid when the Maasai were attacking their villages. The spray was super refreshing and the water was really cold. We stayed there and took pics for awhile, then climbed back up a little ways to a small look out to eat lunch. Then we walked back to the village for the coffee part of the tour. We didn't see the crops because they are between harvesting seasons. So, they had some coffee beans that had been picked and the first shell removed already. When you remove the first shell the outside has a really slimy sticky substance on it, so they put the beans out in the sun to dry. To get the first shell off they run the beans through a home made grinder. Then, after they are dry, they pound the beans in a big pestle (we all had our turns at this) to get the second shell off. After that is removed, you can see the coffee bean like you would buy at home except it's green because they haven't been roasted yet. So then we roasted the beans over an open fire for about 10 minutes. You could really smell the beans, soooo yummy. The roasting is what gives the beans the dark color. In order for us to drink the coffee out of the beans we started with we had to grind them by hand in the pestle again. It took about 10 more minutes to get them ground well. Then, to make the coffee they put the ground beans into boiling water and stir for only about 40 seconds, then quickly pour the pot of coffee through a small strainer into the thermos below. So, we drank the coffee that we made. It was a really long process, and they do it all by hand. It makes you appreciate the coffee you are drinking. It was soooo good! Not bitter at all and a nice bold flavor. We added a little raw sugar (the boys like to add a lot of sugar) but I didn't need much at all, the coffee was so good. I got Kevin 2 bags, which is 4 pounds. It was 6,500 TSH per bag, which is roughly 6 dollars. I might get him a couple more bags, not sure yet. They are delivering the whole beans to me the day before I leave so they will be super fresh. Then we went home and I came here before dinner. After dinner we are gonna go out dancing tonight, should be fun. Tomorrow we leave home base around 10 am and the boys are taking us to the hot springs, which should be super fun. The 3 trips cost 90 dollars, most of the money going to park fees, gas and our box lunches. We are more than happy to give the guys the money, we know they'll use it for a good cause. I'm excited to get back to the school on Monday, I always miss the kids over the weekend. I met with Moses, our program director to ask him if I could go with Caitlyn on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he said that would be fine. Caitlyn is going to be going to work with a legal aid in the area. She will be giving seminars on those days. Hopefully it will be cool, we'll see. I'm really excited to go and hope it all works out. She mostly helps women in the area who need representation. I'll only be with my kids 3 days a week, Monday Wednesday and Friday, but I'm excited to see how the legal system here works, and it would be great to put on my resume. Because we are interns they pay for us to use "resources", and since this legal aid attorney is not a volunteer but a worker in the community, she is considered a resource. So, us interns get extra perks, so the extra money we paid to be interns goes to things like this. This coming week the attorney will only be in on Friday, so Friday we go and then the next week it starts Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Last night the first person from our group, Michelle went home :( We already miss her. Tonight, 2 more girls go home, one who was one of my roommates. Sad. Next Saturday four more people go home and then it will just be me, Caitlyn and Josh left. I think it's the three of us for a week and then a new group comes. Caitlyn and Josh will have one week with them and then they go home. So after that for two weeks I will have to find things to do on my own in the afternoons since they will be having speakers and Swahili lessons.
More soon!