I'll be honest with you all, not an awful lot happened this week....

It's my birthday next Thursday, so I've spent a lot of the week by myself as my housemates either have random strategy sessions planning all the details, or go off into town to do some shopping, insisting that I'm too tired to go with them. Stealth isn't really their strong suit but it's all really sweet. I've gathered that the plan is to have a rasta fancy-dress barbecue at ours, followed by going dancing at the rasta club, Via-Via. Sounds like a good day really, I'll let you know next time.

The power cuts are still terrible here, and I haven't been able to take the time to reply to so many people! I'm really sorry! Aunt Fiona, I just about managed to read your email recently before the power switched off, but it all sounds pretty exciting at your end! Hopefully we can speak properly soon.

This week two of my housemates. Catriona and Rachael decided to climb Mt Meru with two volunteers, Tom and Andy who work in Kisongo. The weather is horrendous at the moment with rainy season, and they're in the middle of their climb as we speak, so I don't really envy them. Kirsty and I have stayed at home, neither of us really mountaineering types, and covered the lessons. Tom and Andy's housemate, Ben didn't want to do the climb either so he's been living with us and coming to our lessons which has been quite funny. He brought a copy of Glamour (no idea where he found it!) to the staff room on Friday and immediately made friends with the entire male staff who were big fans of all the model-filled photo shoots....

Last night we went to the cinema out of town to see 'P.S I Love You' as a bit of a treat. It was 8 girls crying their eyes out, and then me and Ben, keeping up a quiet but constant sarcastic commentry throughout, which made the whole thing more interesting. The rest of the weekend will be spent in town but we're trying to go to different places, ignoring our favourite cafes and bars as we know time in Arusha is running out!

The week was made a bit more interesting as Andy has had his brother and his best friend fly out to stay with him for 2 weeks, seriously upping the quota of heavy Somerset accents. The guys are lovely but it can get a bit confusing as it did on Thursday night when I got stuck in the middle of a heated West Country debate about cider preferences.....They're climbing Meru with everyone else right now, but will be back on Monday. Andy had a massive barbeque at his on Wednesday night to welcome them which was great, made even better by the fact that they brought a guitar with them which everyone had a go on. Walking back across marshes and rivers to get to school the next morning wasn't as fun though, when I next have time I'll upload the pictures of our ordeal...

Well, there's not an awful lot more to say I'm afraid so i think I'll leave it for now.

Talk soon guys!

- Ruby xxx