Cheza mpira.... play ball

Well i just wanted to add a little kiswahili. Which brings up the fact that I need a new name for my blog.

Since I have been back there is really only one thing that I have done consistently. Watch sports. I dearly missed it this summer and I have come back at one of the most interesting, some say best times of the year for sports. I disagree. I enjoy superbowl/masters/march madness but anyway. I come back to the start of the NFL season, Sunday and Monday night. College Football, Thursday night and all day Saturday. Baseball which is generally friday, saturday... well actually every night of the week. So I have pretty much every night of the week if I want to watch sports. And I have pretty much done so. It doesnt really matter who is on the screen I will watch it. For baseball teams they have to be good and I generally dont watch the entire game. Most of the time I am watching something else and I switch back in between pitches/innings. I cant say that I am the most diehard baseball fan. College football usually works the other way. Saturdays consist of watching multiple games while dodging comercials, half time shows and gaps in coverage. It is beautiful. In tanzania I would remember how much time is spent watching tv or simply listening to it while doing something else. Then I think of all the terrible shows that other people are watching. Lets say I watch the same amount of tv as another person, taking into account I am uneployed and have little else to do. 3+ hours of tv a night. While the average persons might consist of the local news, a sitcom or 2 and some garbage network drama or even worse reality tv, I am watching sports. Entertaining, an industry I would rather support than a network that churns out reality tv shows and the same old police dramas. My sports are supplemented with the national geographic channel, animal planet or I have recently found the Green channel. Thanks to mom and dad for expanding their tv options. And my night normally ends up with an episode of south park, the daily show or colbert report, whatever comedy central provides me.

A little sporadic I know, but that has been my life in the past couple weeks. Who the hell knows what will happen next week and I dont even think about next month or year. And to end a bit of my poetic side, thanks go to my host family in Tanga, TZ. 6-29-09 Enjoy the rhyme scheme.

Mangos migrate to me
Alliteration abouds when asking around.

Talking in prose aint as bad as youd spose

Baba's two phones so hes never alone
Pushing god, who knows
just to feed the watotos
Swahili's no cakewalk
how'd I ever learn to talk
Gonna eat that embe
just as soon as it turns day

Im proud of these lines
not much more than fine
This poem aint dead
But im at the kerosene's end.