Can I have a shower...please?

Well let's see, today is Thursday, and yesterday was Wednesday...
sometimes it is so hard to keep track of the days here!  Yesterday we had our human evolution exam, which was fairly easy.  Our professor pretty much told us what the questions were going to be ahead of time and we all finished within a half an hour.  After class, I trotted off to Mwenge to check out the market again.  I ended up buying a fabric picture of an elephant and giraffe that is multicolored and beautiful!  I got back, went to ecology, and then returned to the dorm.  Colleen and I lugged some water up from the big black tanks below (they finally filled them!) and we got to flush the toilet :)   I cooked some pasta in my room for dinner (it turned out alright) and then studied some for our Swahili exam today.  The Swahili exam went well...same old, same old.  There are definitely some tricky parts on the exam, but the beautiful thing is that we are allowed to ask the T.A.'s just about anything we want.  Then it was off to research methods and then to lunch at the Kiswahili Cafe.  After lunch we had an awkward break before human evolution at 2:45.  I read out on the grass under the big tree at the university and then went to the post office to mail a letter (FYI it costs 2,200 Tsh to mail a letter from here to the US-that's about $1.30).  We got our tests back in ecology and surprisingly everybody passed.  Granted, passing is defined as 50% and above, but we all did just fine.  Our professor decided to throw out the silly first question which asked us to name all 6 of the authors for our textbooks.  After class, I headed to the mall at Mlimani City to buy some cotton balls (thrilling, right?)-I have become very dependent on using cotton balls and face toner as my face gets pretty gross from all the dirt and sweat around here.  I also found some sugar snap peas and fresh baked bread at the grocery store and they were delicious! Colleen and I are still on the lookout for contact solution...I have plenty but Colleen is running low.  I'm not quite sure if we will find any seeing as many of the people here have never even heard of contacts before.  The power was out all day due to the electricity shortage, but we have power now!  Tomorrow we head off to Zanzibar for the weekend.  We leave at 5:30 a.m. and take a bus to downtown Dar where we catch a ferry to Zanzibar.  We should be there by 10:00 a.m.  Our T.A.s for Swahili our coming with us since the trip is funded by the Swahili department at the university.  It will be interesting trying to converse with them in Swahili the entire time!  And interestingly enough, Zanzibar is 1/2 hour ahead of Tanzania.  Why? I have no idea.  Apparently they thought it was a good idea to have a different time zone.  Anyway, look for another blog entry Monday.  Talk to you all when I get back!
Erin