Would a dog be the same dog by any other name? It turns out yes it is, especially if you throw food into the equation. Our house has a foster dog that we call Freddie. Freddie for a large proportion of his day lives outside our house, greeting us in the morning, when we come home from school and sitting with us on the veranda. He is an old dog, has cataracts and has probably already lived most of his days. He is a very polite dog and is partial to bread, biscuits and going off meat. It however turns out that Freddie isn't Freddie- or at least he isn't only Freddie. Our neighbours daughter, Sophia the First, came to visit us this week. We were talking when Freddie wandered over, it turns out, according to Sophia the First, that Freddie is Jake. Freddie also answers to Jake, or it could be that Jake answers to Freddie. Some time later it also turns out that Freddie/Jake is known as Shoe-shoe-shoe by another neighbour (I have since been corrected for shortening it to just Shoe!) We have since gotten over Freddie's disloyalty and treason to our house and he is back having his dinner here every morning before he turns into Jake for his second dinner and Shoe-shoe-shoe for his third! Away from the animals of Tanzania, I am slowly getting used to being back after the Christmas break. There has been a number of changes with some volunteers leaving in December and six new ones arriving in January. There are now 15 volunteers and as many Tanzanian staff. Out of the 15 volunteers, only three of us are not American- it is becoming increasingly apparent that we need to create a British English to American English dictionary in our house. This week I have had quite a few completely confused moments where I haven't had a clue what was being said! I think my accent may be even more confusing by the time I return! Due to the increase in staff I have now more time on my hands at school which is taking a bit of getting used to. I keep meaning to use the time to improve my Swahili and Masai but feel a bit like I'm skiving whenever I do. One of the guards is however giving me half a page of Masai words to learn at a time. I can now discuss the weather, ask if you want tea, inform you that we have no tea and wish you a good evening! I am still involved in the research project about the effect of education on the community and changes that have taken place in the last five years. It is fairly quiet at the moment but it is expected to get busy in the next few weeks when I have to give out surveys in primary schools and start looking at interviewing people. I am also still activity coordinator however there is now someone here whose sole job is athletics (it has become a full time position now there is so much of it) and so I am no longer responsible for organising sports trips at weekends. This has seemed a bit strange but I'm getting used to not chasing up buses and rushing to get letters printed out for parents in time. I'm also not taking quite so many photos this term which I am already starting to miss so am going to request that I can get more involved in that side of things again. I am starting to take over the volunteer coordinator role. This has so far involved getting things ready for visas for the new people and updating health and safety forms. My current main task involves sorting out 'Room B'. Room B is a room that has become a store cupboard of forgotten about items. Once it is sorted I will get to share it with administration as a place to store activity resources. So far I have found 52 books, 356 toothpastes, 2 guitars and a keyboard and I have only just scratched the surface. I'm hoping this term to get more involved in what is termed here as 'special education'. This is what at home we would call additional support needs for students who need extra help with school. I'm really looking forward to this having an interest in this area already. Not all the students are back in school just yet. Some of the girls got engaged over the holidays and so are not planning on returning, this includes some of the girls in Preform One (the youngest class). Despite rainy season having ended in December in theory, in reality it is very much still ongoing. There has been either most days or nights so far. The first time it really rained I was in Arusha (the nearby town) with Meghan and Kelli, two other volunteers. We had gone to a cafe for lunch after going to Church when the rain started to fall so heavily it was bouncing off the roads and mini floods were starting to be formed. As we have to be back before dark in the village and transport can take a bit of time we did not follow with Tanzanian culture which is stay where you are until it stops but instead decided we just had to head home. A very rainy walk followed with us being the centre of attention by the large crowds that had gathered to wait out the rain in the shops at the sides of the road. My second main rainy experience since I've been back happened at school. The rain made the ground turn into a mixture of slippy ice and glue at the same time. One student informed me that I walked like I was at a wedding as I very slowly and carefully walked around outside. As the roads became impassable with the mud we had a shuttle system down to the main road. Even this was not smooth sailing however as one teacher fell very badly and another one nearly ended up underneath the land rover. My own problem emerged when I tried to change from the land rover to the school bus and realised my sandals had stuck to the floor the land rover as they had so much mud at the bottom. I have now got used to getting up in the morning and having to hunt out wellies and a raincoat before being able to go outside to the toilet. Fortunately the rain decided to have a break this weekend and so Meghan, Kelli, Daisy and I decided to go for a walk out of the town and through some fields. It was really beautiful and picturesque and we followed a herd of cows and goats home again as they were being rounded up for the evening. Here dogs aren't used at all but instead an assortment of people armed with sticks sort of get them to start running and then the rest all follow. One of our neighbours invited us into their house on the way back and we sat outside and sorted beans with them. They were very interested in my arm being well bandaged (it has become a main topic of conversation with everyone) and they gave us a bag of beans to take home with us. Unfortunately being back, my stomach has not adjusted willingly and so I've missed a bit of work but am beginning to acclimatise again. I'm sticking with bottled water for absolutely everything for the time being. Luckily with the rain, we've not had too many problems with water at the house and have started putting buckets outside to catch it. I've also been getting very strange headaches but hoping again with time this will all return to normal. The heat has been a bit of a shock after leaving freezing Scotland so I'm guessing it will all be connected. This upcoming weekend I am planning to go watch some football and basketball games the school is taking part in and attend the large market that takes place in our town on Sundays- it is one of my favourite things to go to here.