The Great Dala Strike of 2011

Monday morning when we were all getting ready for placement, we were told that the dala dala's were on strike. The majority of people get around by dala dala's. I think I have talked about them previously, but they are old vans with a colored stripe down the side that differentiates where they will be headed. People bring their chickens on the dala's and will just tie them all together by their feet and throw them on the floor. My friend Emmy stepped on a chickens head her first week here. People also bring their goats on the dala's... they will tie their legs together and shove them under the seats. It is also common to sit on someone's lap that is a complete stranger or even for a woman to hand you her baby while she is standing in the isle. The night before the strike started, we actually caught a dala back to our house. Most days we do, but this was the fullest dala I had ever been on. When they pulled up to us we said "No Way!" because there was only standing room by the door maybe room for one person to stand and then the conductor (who stands at the door.. lets people on and takes the money). We hopped on anyway and stood with our butts sticking outside of the door while the tops of our bodies were leaning over the people's heads in the seats. It was so full that we rode with the door open and the conductor stood behind Amanda with his feel on the metal step and hanging onto a metal bar on the outside of the dala. We even picked up one more man who did the same thing behind me. It is complete chaos. Almost always.

So on Monday morning many people could not go to their placements because the dala's had all gone on strike. We fortunately could because the "Super Safari," our crap school jeep picks us up down the road from our house. I have never seen so many people walking around before.

I have heard many stories of why the dala drivers went on strike.

1) The drivers charge 300-500 shillings per ride and they want to increase the rate of those rides because it is not enough to support them. The people do not want to pay more and many cannot because they have no money.

2) Supposedly a dala driver ran over a police officer, killed him and drove away. Now all the police are stopping dala's left and right trying to find this person. The rumor is that there were about 50 dala drivers in jail, so they all went on strike.

3) No one died... but the police are giving tickets to dala drivers for parking in bus stops or random places. The dala drivers want to have specific stops made so the police can not keep fining them.

All could be true, or none could be true. Who knows. The dala drivers are insane. That is a fact. And the police are corrupt. But either way it is now Wednesday and the strike is still on for most of the town. Yesterday the Yellow dala's were running in the morning but then all the other branches of dala's got angry that they were stopping the strike so there were riots in town and police were throwing around tear gas. People from the house saw a full yellow dala get stopped by an empty green dala and they started beating up the people inside. Today the yellow ones are running and some green ones.. we are not sure if it is safe now but we rode one to the cafe today that was empty and my body and mind were in hyper aware status.

Here is an article in an Arusha newspaper about the strike.
http://in2eastafrica.net/arusha-bus-operators-strike-continues/

Yesterday three girls were in town walking back from placement and they saw a yellow dala and green dala getting into a fight. They looked to that side of the road and by the time they looked back straight they were all three getting attacked. The robbers used this time of chaos and distraction to try and steal their bags. One was knocked to the ground by the man and he was on top of her trying to get her bag. Her back is hurt and another girls has scratches all over her arms and neck.

One good thing about Arusha, and Tanzania in general... is that punishment is strong here and enforced always by the towns people. We have heard many stories of people who steal getting beat up or even killed for it.

The girls said that in an instant there were people swarming them and ushering them into a gas station. They were sat down and given water. The men went after the three guys who attacked them and even brought one of them back and made him apologize. I am sure that after this they were taken out and beaten up badly. Our house driver Michael went and picked up the girls and then called everyone at placement and made the rounds to pick them up. On the way back he didn't even drive back on the main road because there were people fighting everywhere. The girls are fine and they still have their purses.

Here are some more stories..

One of our girls was in Zanzibar and her bag was stolen. She started to yell "thief" and a swarm of people attacked him and started beating him. He was killed in front of her.

At a volunteer hostel in town some girls were walking back and a man ran up and stole her bag. She started yelling and he was tackled by a swarm of people and beaten. They had his pants down and were hitting him repeatedly in the genitals. The girls kept yelling for them to stop and the people wouldn't. One person even asked her if she wanted them to kill him. Their house guard came out and broke it up and then later went to make sure the man was taken to the hospital. He was there and the police then wanted to question the girl. She went in and they told her that she could choose if he went free or went to prison. But that if she let him go free the people on the street would just kill him anyway.

A taxi driver hit a boy and killed him a couple of weeks ago and he was dragged outside of his car and killed.

There are so many stories like this and it is making my nerves go berserk. Pray that the strikes end and that we will continue to be safe while here. I don't even want to walk home from the cafe today, but I have to. I am always aware of my surroundings, looking up, and I wear my jacket over my bag so it would be difficult for them to steal.

We decided the other night while walking back from a dance competition in town that walking through Arusha is like walking through New York. All the windows are broken and there are bars in every window and door. People holler at you and try to grab out for you. We left Via Via around 6:30 to walk back to the yellow bus stop to get a ride home which is about a 30 minute walk and it is completely dark by 7. On our walk one of our friends were spit on by an older female. We didn't stop because it was quickly getting dark. I wanted to stop at ShopRite and get a taxi but everyone said we would be fine. Walking to the stop is probably the busiest place in town with markets and street venders. My friend Angie was grabbed at and even saw a man with a gun in his belt walk by us. Which I am sure is common here. Anyway we made it to the bus stop and back alive, which is wonderful. We will never head back home that close to nightfall again.

Onto lighter topics... we took our kids swimming at the pool yesterday and it was the first time they had ever seen one. I have some great stories and photos to add but will have to do it the next time I get to the internet.

Today we had white rice, cabbage and grass for lunch. Seriously.

Life in Arusha

*I made a youtube account and have posted some videos on it. I have lots more to go up onto it but it will probably take a while. It takes about 30 minutes to upload one of them. The address is: http://www.youtube.com/user/faithloveandservice

Power

It has been about a week and a half since I last uploaded a blog post. Everything is rationed in Tanzania, but mainly food, water and electricity. What we have come to call “real power” is on for about 6 hours a day if we are lucky. Our house does have a generator but we usually save that for night time and it can be tripped by almost anything we plug into the wall. Sometimes, the generator doesn’t come on at all. “Real power” means that I get toast in the morning, or that I have 5% increased chance of getting a luke warm shower. If I am counting... I have had three warm showers since being here. The power seems to always go off right before I stick my toast into the toaster or when there is 10 minutes left of a movie that everyone is watching in the living room. Almost every night we eat dinner in the dark, which isn’t completely bad because then I cannot see what questionable thing I am eating for the day. But, since the power is one about 6 hours a day... it seems that this is always when I am away at placement or sleeping for the night. Therefore, my laptop has been dead for over a week. BUT! I got to charge my phone, ipod, AND laptop yesterday... such a good day! So we are back up and running. For at least another four hours and thirteen minutes... or so my computer battery says. 

Water

Every other day we run out of water and are usually without it until the next day. The water is almost always freezing and the water pressure is less strong than the water pressure in my kitchen sink. For those of you who have used this sink... the pressure is almost nonexistent. I am not exaggerating. My mom will definitely feel sorry for me when she reads this. Thanks mom. Running out of water sometimes means no drinking water either.. which is easy enough because we can walk down the street about a minute to a small shop and buy a Liter of it. But running out of water means not being able to flush the toilet for the rest of the night or however long until we get a new supply. This is definitely sometimes treacherous!

Food

I haven’t really gone in to depth on what I am exactly eating here everyday. I assumed incorrectly that living in the volunteer house with all volunteers that we would usually have Western food and sometimes get Tanzanian food. Again, assumed incorrectly. I have had Western food twice since being here. TWICE. Two meals. And it isn’t even great Western food. I love food. Alot. Most times when I get homesick it is after a really bad meal. 

The best meal of the day at the volunteer house is lunch, but with my placement, I am gone everyday during lunch time. So I miss the best meal of the day and get to eat lunch at school. At placement we always have white rice and usually beans. But sometimes we get lucky and get maze. (Sarcasm) Maze is the same thing as corn here but it is white. I am not a huge fan of corn but can eat it. Actually, here I can eat anything. The thing is, they do not cook the maize long enough so it is still hard when we eat it. If we are not having beans for the day, and we get maize... they mix it in with the ratio of 502 maze kernels and 34 beans. Today was a “maize day” which is probably why I am a little more grumpy than normal. :) We usually always have cabbage as well. Yuck. But I eat it. If we are lucky we get tomatoes and onions. I hate tomatoes at home... but it is the lesser of evils here. So I enjoy when we have them. OHHH... and the rice... has rocks in it. If you are lucky you may chomp down on one and chip a tooth. The other day Oliwier bit down on one and it was so loud that we all looked up and saw that he was in pain. They try and get all the rocks separated but you always miss several. I love the cooks at school and I am so thankful to have anything to eat, don’t get me wrong, I know children and whole families here go hungry without food... but it is my American food indulgence showing through. I have my weaknesses. 

Our three meals for dinner at the volunteer house are 1) Chips Maeye (fried egg with french fries in it) or Chips Kuku (French fries and chicken). I have talked about this before in a post.. it actually isn’t too horrible but the chickens still have hair on them when you eat them. The chips are good but are not what I could call french fries. Everything is cooked over the gas stove here and we have no oven. 2) Chapatti and lentils. Chapatti is cooked dough.. almost like a tortilla. I love these. Other than when we have “real power” and I get toast.. this is the only other time I get bread. Lentils... are lentils. I do not know how to describe them but if I eat Chapatti with lentils on it and then douse it in chili sauce.. I can almost pretend I am eating Mexican food. This is my favorite meal. 3) Mashed potatoes and cooked vegetables. The potatoes are decent but I support eating meat... and at home, we never have potatoes without meat. So eating it with vegetables is not my favorite. Thankfully we have this one night a week... unfortunately that night is tonight. Meals one and two alternate every other day excluding Wednesdays (Mashed potato night).

In conclusion.. white rice.. beans.. maize.. vegetables.. potatoes.. hairy chicken... CARBS, CARBS and more carbs. Most hours I would kill for a chicken quesadilla with nacho cheese and hot sauce. Speaking of the chili sauce.. everything is made better here by pouring hot sauce on it. Everything. I plan on eating 10 meals on the day I arrive home. That is in 81 days. That is 2x the length of Lent. I love Africa!!!! 

No, but really. I love it here. I love my placement and I love my kids. I love the friends I have made here and am thankful everyday for this opportunity. This past weekend I missed my kids so much that I couldn’t wait to get back on Monday. I am sad that there is only two days left of this week but am celebrating because Friday night we are going for PIZZAAAAA! 

I miss you all and please say a good light humored prayer that I do not go insane from the food here. I am going crazy already and it has only been 22 days. 

I risked taking a photo in the middle of town for this great view of Mt. Meru in the background. 

Yes, That is a REAL mountain!

Yeyoni

Yeyoni is 14 years old and she is absolutely amazing. She is so witty, smart and speaks probably the best Swahili of all the children. She loves to sing and to clap. Actually the word “loves” would be an understatement seeing as how there is rarely a moment in time when Yeyoni isn’t singing. 

I am not sure exactly how long Yeyoni was missing from school but I think for at least two months. There were several occasions when people went to her house and her parents would always say, “She is sick” “It is too cold” or “We will send her Monday.” Last Wednesday, Oliwier and Hussan went to Yeyoni’s house and she was at home by herself. She told Hussan that she really wanted to come to school but that no one would ever get her ready and send her and that she would cry and cry to her mom but it didn’t work. They told her that they would come back the next day. On Thursday, myself, one other volunteer (Chloe) and Hussan went to Yenyoni’s again in the afternoon to see if her parents would be home.

Yeyoni and her family are Massai and live in a traditional Massai house. They have a rectangular hut with three rooms in it and a single room round hut. Both are made of sticks, mud and straw. When we arrived to Yeyoni’s house on Thursday there was no one around. Hussan walked around the houses calling her mothers name and then hers. He heard noises coming out of the single room round hut and it sounded like Yeyoni. The hut was padlocked and she was inside of it. 

We stood there for a bit because Hussan was pretty angry and wanted to see if someone would come home so he could talk to them. Not too long after an older woman walked into the gate. This woman did not speak much Swahili as most Massai do not. Instead they speak their own Massai language. She was able to tell Hussan that the parents of Yeyoni could not care for her that day so they locked her in the hut. She did not know how long they had been gone for or when they would be coming back. She told Hussan that when Yeyoni is left alone she goes to the neighbors yard asking for food and water. Her parents are embarrassed of her disability and believe that it is of the devil, so this is why they locked her up. So she could not embarrass them.

I left that day trying as hard as I could not to cry. I was so incredibly livid.. and when I think about it now, I still am. It is frustrating me that a mental and physical disability is still seen as impure here and not just genetics and sometimes bad luck. People do not understand that children with special needs can go to school, learn, and live a productive life. This is why parents often will kill a baby or a child with disabilities in Africa.

The next morning as soon as we got to school the three of us left again for Yeyoni’s. We figured that maybe since it was early morning that her parents would still be home. And they were. Hussan talked for a long time to her parents as we sat there and got to see with our own eyes, Yeyoni for the first time. She was very timid and was sitting up against a wall. I am not sure if Hussan confronted them about locking Yeyoni in the hut the day before but they told him that it had been too cold lately to send Yeyoni to school. He told them that we wanted to take Yeyoni with us to school that day. They said it would take too long to get her ready and that they would send her on Monday. Hussan lied and told them that we had a special program planned just for today and Yeyoni needed to be there. They finally gave in and the mother got up to go get a bucket of water to wash and dress Yeyoni. As soon as Yeyoni was told she was going to school, she jumped up and started yelling, laughing, jumping in circles and singing. 

He mother washed her and dressed her in a nice dress and jacket. She looked like a completely different child. On the walk back to school Chloe held one of her hands as I held the other. She told Hussan, “These teachers much love me that hold my hand, because they came to find me.” She also told him, “My parents will just have to cry today because I am going to school and they cannot lock me in the hut” and “I am wearing my most beautiful gown, I might as well go into town today!” 

On our walk back a woman passing us started to talk to Yeyoni. This woman told Hussan that she was Yeyoni’s aunt and they her real mother ran away from the family because of Yeyoni’s disability. The woman we had met at the house was Yeyoni’s step mother. 

We got to school after the morning singing was finished, which is Yeyoni’s favorite thing to do. But, thank God, at least we had her at school. She was so excited to see everyone! When we were playing outside, Yeyoni sat on the concrete by Chloe and myself. Chloe didn’t want her parents to have any excuse not to send her to school so she bought her a sweater and scarf at the second hand shop run by the school. As we were sitting there Katie (a volunteer) and I started singing “Skinna marinki dinki do” to some of the kids and next thing we know Yeyoni is singing “I love you in the morning and in the afternoon!” She picked up a whole line after hearing it once. We were pretty amazed. 

We are 99% sure that Yeyoni is abused at home. Aside from her being locked in a round hut that is 4 foot by 4 foot all day... she flinches back every time someone reaches for her and starts blinking rapidly. We aren’t quite sure what to do about this. 

Since Thursday, Hussan has went every morning to get Yeyoni for school, and she hasn’t worn her new sweater back to school yet. We are hoping it wasn’t given to another child or sold by her parents. Even though Yeyoni is 14 years old and speaks amazing Swahili, she is still in my “little class.” We are not sure if she knows her numbers or colors. Today we painted toilet paper rolls to make into birds and she did great with that. She also helped me tape all of the painted papers onto the rolls. It breaks my heart that every time I reach out to her she still recoils. I usually end up holding her after every time. It is horrible that it has to be an instant reflex for her and I wish anything that I could change it. 

Yeyoni wearing her new sweater and scarf. She was singing of course!

This is just one of the 30+ stories of the lives of my children. You want to move heaven and earth to make life better and easier for these children, but the hard truth is that... I can love on them and hold them and kiss them while they are at school, but then we have to send them back to their lives at the end of the day. I worry about many of the children at the school. 

We still have heard no news of Elisha. I will try to encourage Mary again tomorrow to try and contact his mother to see if he is feeling better or if he has even been taken to the doctor. 

One of our older boys came to school today with a black eye. Apparently, two other children threw rocks at him yesterday as he was walking home from school. His parents reported it to the police and then took him to the hospital which is considered incredible parenting here is Tanzania. 



One of our other boys Johnny, is autistic and the other day as he was running down the road towards home in front of the school jeep, he had sticks thrown at him by little children. It is very hard to sit and watch my kids being bullied for what they have no control over.

Zainabu on the left is four and is always either crying or cheesing it up. Joely is one of my deaf boys I am working with. LOVE him. 

Joely pushing Oliwier on the swings

Samwely is my other deaf student. 

Elise and Lucy. The photo is dark but Lucy's face is priceless.

Again, a Horrible/Amazing day at placement

Today was our first day back at placement since we were there last Wednesday before our safari. There were A LOT of children at school today and after being there for three days, there were about 5 new kids that I hadn't even seen at the school yet.

The amazing news of today was that two volunteers that had been there for two months but that were gone on safari last week, came back and we met them today. They will be here until around August so pretty much my whole time there. It has been difficult in my classroom because the teacher is young, doesn't speak much English, and seems disinterested in the children's learning process. Today she wasn't there but one of the volunteers that came back has been in the same classroom as I for the two months previous. His name is Oliver and he is from France and is so good with the kids. He was able to explain how they usually teach the kids to me and we actually did small art projects and games and actual learning! It was so great! I am excited to have Oliver with me for the next 5 weeks.

I also worked with Samwely again today on signing his alphabet. It is coming very slowly but I have complete faith that by the end of my 6 weeks there he will know the whole alphabet. Oliver has been learning signing as well and is working with him. There is also another little boy who is deaf in our class named Joely, I am also going to start working with him. This is only his second week at the school and I am sure we will be starting signing from scratch. I am taking this on as my mission and it will get done.

Horrible part of my day... Elisha is a little boy in my class that is so sick. He has jaundiced eyes that stream tears constantly,  he has a cough, runny nose and even though it is hot outside he shivers constantly. My first day there we decided that we were going to take him to the hospital to be seen at the beginning of this week after we got permission from his caretakers. His father died last year from AIDS and his mom is an alcoholic. She sent him to live with his uncle and his two wives that live by the school. I am not sure what is wrong with Elisha but he seems to be bright but just uncommunicative. Elisha was not at school today and when I asked about him they said he was also gone from school on Friday. I told Mama Mary I was worried about him and she said that since he lived close we could take a walk to his house to see if he was there and could come back to school with us. His house is cement and very small. I heard from Mary that there is no room for him and he sleeps on the concrete floor, often without a blanket or pillow. On of his uncles wife's just had a baby who is one week old and she is busy caring for her baby. She told us that on Thursday (the Tanzanian holiday) Elisha got much sicker and could not stop shivering. She said since the baby had come she could not care for him all of the time (bathing, feeding, dressing, etc.) So she called his mother who lives three hours away up in the foothills of Mt. Meru to come and get him. He is gone and who knows if he will even get treatment now. Mary says he may not be back for months because the new mother needs him to be healthy because she cannot care for him and her new baby. After my persistence, Mary said she would try and contact two nuns she knows who do AIDS treatment in that area to check in on him and make sure he was taken to the doctor. My guess is that he has HIV or worst case scenario, AIDS and that is why his immune system is shot. A blood test here is only 30,000 shillings which is about 15 dollars and if you have AIDS in Tanzania, treatment is free. Meaning all of his medications would be free of charge and he may get better. But Elisha is gone now and it is so frustrating that he was sent away before we could take him to the doctor ourselves. He will also not be going to school now as there is no special needs school for him in his area. I had to try so hard to hold back my tears on the walk back to the school and have been in a funk all day long. If Mary gets a hold of his mother and she has not had him seen by a doctor, I am going to pay our house driver to drive me there so I can take him. Once again, we live such a blessed life. Please say prayers for Elisha.

Safari

I just got home at 5 PM last night from my four day safari and it was probably the most interesting and amazing thing I will ever do in my life. Although, I would LOVE to try and top it!

We left at 9 AM on Thursday morning. Thursday was a holiday here in Tanzania so the children did not have school which made it very convenient that I would only miss one day of placement. On our first day we drove to Lake Manyara. It was an hour and a half drive the road was all paved which is truly a luxury here. Once we got there we set up camp, ate lunch, and headed out. On our trip we had 22 of us, four tour guides, four jeeps and two cooks. The meals were absolutely amazing! For lunch our first day we had grilled chicken, a hamburger, a samosa, juice, banana, cookie, etc. It was so much food! I am pretty sure that the hamburger was not beef, but what can I do.. I am in Africa! So I suck it up. And eat blindly whatever I am given.

Lake Manyara is GORGEOUS and it was probably my most favorite day of safari! It is a jungle environment, cool temperature and so gorgeous! Monkeys are EVERYWHERE. Before we even got into the park, as we were driving through a town there were about 20 monkeys passing on the road. Then when we stopped at the gates to use the bathrooms before we went out in the jeeps, monkeys were not even a foot away from us. It was insane. Blue haired monkeys and baboons.

 This was at the top of the Lake before we headed down to it

In addition to the monkeys we saw lots of elephants, large reptiles, gazelles, bush babies, lots of birds, zebras, ostriches, giraffes, hippos, wildebeest, hyenas, etc. We went back that night, ate the awesome dinner that was prepared for us, and then some local Tanzanians played the drums and danced for about an hour. The place we stayed was a nice camp ground with a really nice outside dining area. But we slept in tents and the first night there were four of us in our tent. Our zippers to the doors did not really close any of the nights but at Manyara it was pretty warm. One of my friends Matt who was in our tent snored so incredibly loud and we had a good time of hitting him throughout the night. I cannot believe I forgot my earplugs!

The next morning we woke up and made about an hour drive to the Serengeti Park. This road was NOT paved. I almost got sick one of the days after eating because the roads were so bumpy. But always amazing. We saw our first lions, cheetahs and leopards in the Serengeti. We were in the Serengeti for two days and woke up on that third day at 5:30 AM so we could see the sunrise. I wish my camera had done the scenery justice. When you are first driving into the park it is complete flatland grassy fields. There are no trees to be seen anywhere. I was surprised by the lack of trees. Once we got into the park it got a little greener but not much, it is the dry season here though and as incredibly dusty. On two of the days I wore white shirts to try and not get so hot and they have turned light brown from all the dust. Sunglasses were a necessity and since mine have been MIA since "the squatter incident"..  I was luckily able to borrow a pair from a friend! At our camp we were sleeping in the middle of the Serengeti with not gates to keep out animals.. we could hear animals stoping through our tents during the night. It was actually very scary and we were told not to leave our tent after dark, even with a group, as there could be lions or hyenas.

 Sunrise in the Serengeti, this is also one small fraction of the Wildebeest Migration

We also stopped at Oldupai Gorge Museum on the way to the Serengeti. This is a museum where you can hear about and see molds of what scientist believe to be the oldest preserved human footprints. Apparently this is a huge thing that students and scientists from all over the world come to see that I never had even heard of. But I am also horrible at history.

On our last day we went to Ngorongoro Crater. This crater is made up of the sunken in volcanoes and houses thousands of animals. The scenery as you are driving down the mountain is breathtaking and beyond beautiful. Again, my camera can not do it justice. The crater is home to the black rhinos and we completed our "Animal list" by seeing them. Our camp site was beautiful but was a rough night. It was absolutely freezing and I was wearing three shirts, two jackets, two pairs of socks and had three blankets and still froze! It was so incredibly windy there. It was also right in the crater with no gates so there were animals walking right through our tents again. I have a video of an elephant stealing water with its trunk out of the water tank right in our camp. We were standing not even 6 feet from him. It was totally a Water For Elephants moment. I got it on video. Speaking of videos I am going to try and make a youtube page so I can upload all my videos. With the speed of the internet here, it is impossible to upload them onto my blog or even facebook. When we walked to the bathroom that night, we had to cross a field and three of us were walking in the pitch black with a small flashlight. We were walking and talking and all of a sudden we almost ran into a group of zebras. They didn't even run! They were blocking the path so we turned around and decided we didn't have to go that badly! We met a guy at the campsite that was like 22 and worked for Google News.. it was pretty cool. Him and his friends were on a World Tour.

 Looking down at the crater

Elephant stealing water!

I think with our four jeeps, we had to stop on the side of the road at least 8 times. Also, the police here flag you down at random and you have to pull over. Apparently you pay them off each time so they won't try to find something wrong to give you a ticket. It is so strange and a lot of the police are corrupted here. Our guides were absolutely amazing!!

Massai. I thought before coming here that the Massai tribe was one single tribe living in the area. NO. There are Massai tribes EVERYWHERE. You cannot drive down a street or through a town without seeing a Massai in their bright red and purple congas. Also, while we were driving through Manyara and Ngorongoro there would be little boys no older than 5 years old herding about 70+ goats by themselves with no one around. They also stand on the side of the road waiting for you stop to take a picture of an animal and they ask for money. One of our tour guides grew up and is still Massai and it was interesting to hear about it. It is such a foreign concept. We saw some boys around age 14 clad in all black congas and with black and white face paint and headdresses. They wear this outfit every day for three months before and for three months after their circumcision. 

Challenging day turned into a blessing

I just want to say that right now as I am sitting at the internet cafe, I have a perfect view of Mt. Meru right in front of me. It is so big and beautiful, absolutely breathtaking. I have not seen a glimpse of Kili yet because it is right behind Meru but they said on some days when it is clear out you can. Next time I come I will bring my camera and upload a picture of Meru. It is the second tallest mountain in Tanzania and in all of Africa it is the third tallest. I am so blessed to be surrounded by so much beauty. But even with the beauty, there is so much poverty.

We were driving to the bank today and in town there are families who line up tents on the side of the road underneath the trees and they live there. Their tents are a piece of cloth or dried leaves held up by either mud or four sticks in each corner. Most of them have gardens and they sell their goods right there where they sleep. I don't think after three months that I will even be use to this sight. I am blessed. We are all greatly blessed!

So today was my third day at the school and I am not going to sugar coat it, it was horrible for the most part. The children were wired up and fighting/not listening to anything we were telling them. One little girl who is four has an older sister who is on vacation from school this week so she is at the school in out classroom. She was mocking every command we would give and deliberately do the opposite of everything we said. She would also instigate fights. By 10 AM I was so frustrated and just wanted to quit for the day (after two hours).

But during "tea time," I was able to have time to check out the class binder. In this binder is a photo of each of my children and their backgrounds. When I have more time to write on here I will tell you about some of our children, but today I will tell you about Samwely, or Sam. Samwely is the child in the class that smiles the brightest and hugest smiles you could ever imagine. It is beyond beautiful, even with the rotting teeth. Everyone of my kids have rotting teeth. Anyway, I had noticed the last two days that he didn't seem to always follow commands even though he was such a good helper at other times and that he was always clapping and giving me a thumbs up sign when he did something right to receive praise and recognition for his act.

We didn't really receive any background or learning accomplishments of our children so went into the classrooms rather blindly. All of the kids are special needs and they do not understand Swahili most of the time, let alone try to teach them English. So I just assumed Samwely was not understanding me or listening to me when I would give him a command in Swahili. I learned today from the binder that Samwely is deaf. He wasn't ignoring the rules, he just couldn't hear me. So after "tea time" I grabbed a puzzle with the ABC's and some flashcards of numbers and I took him one on one to see how much he had previously been taught or picked up. He is so bright! As soon as I pointed to the "A" and made the sign for it he went directly on to B and then C and then D. The rest of them he could not do without me showing him but once I did his fingers automatically made the shape so I know he is at least a little bit familiar with them. We worked on spelling SAM and made him a sign for his name. We worked on basic commands and also numbers. After the hellish morning I had, this was so uplifting and I finally felt like I was accomplishing something.

For lunch we had the norm, rice, beans and veggies. But yesterday.... we had meat which we were so excited about because it is rare to have here. I ate all of it except for one piece that had a lot of bones in it. After eating we asked her if it was beef and Mama Mary said, "No, goat." BARF. Now, I like goat, I have had it before and it was good. But the thought of me knawing meat off of a goat bone really grossed me out and my stomach was upset for the rest of the day. YUMM.

Tomorrow we are waking up at 9AM to leave for a four day safari! We are going through the organization so it is so incredibly cheap. Well I have to run to a meeting about the trip so I will hopefully have lots of pictures and stories to report back soon!! <3

St. Dymphina Special Needs School

First of all, I am finding this so incredibly hard to write because I cannot figure out how to express the feelings I am having and the impact of my surroundings. I will try to do my best, but I will still not be satisfied in the end. 

This morning I met with Aliza, the house manager, and she showed me how to get to my placement, St. Dymphina Special Needs School. We left the volunteer house and walked to the Oil Com (what is supposed to serve as a gas station). This is about a 5 minute walk if you are walking fast and it is where we can meet the dala dala if we need it. So we hopped onto a dala dala, the ride was pretty short so it only cost 200 shillings (about 12 cents). From there we walked about a mile uphill to the school. Not only uphill, but the roads here are dirt with gravel and huge jagged rocks jutting out everywhere. I have never been more thankful of the solid/flat/paved roads that we have in the US. The walk did wonders for the cramping that was already in my legs from Saturday’s waterfall hike.

I wish that photos and words could begin to describe St. Dymphina Special Needs School. I fell in love as soon as I walked into the school, but I was also very quickly overwhelmed. I didn’t bring anything with me today because I wasn’t sure if there would be a safe place to store it, but soon I will take my camera to take some photos of the building and the kids, and possibly a video. 

The building is concrete and everywhere you look there is a part of the structure unfinished. The floors are pure dirt and there is dust everywhere. The playground consists of two swing sets, both of them metal and rusty, one of them is so rusty that the metal has eaten through it and it is no longer safe to swing on. There are four classrooms. One for the little bitty kids, one for the middle kids, one for the autistic kids and then the professional classroom that is the older kids. The classrooms are all painted with murals, the ABS’c and numbers, so they are relatively nice. 

First thing in the morning they line up and we sing Tanzania’s national anthem. Well, they do, I do not know it and may not ever know it considering it is in Swahili. Next we all sing a song in English that has them practice their social skills by interacting with each other and us. The words are pretty funny and maybe once I learn it better I can write it on here. After this they had a bathroom break. The bathrooms the children use are squaters and they do not use toilet paper. I kind of expected this but it is still bazaar. 

After this they break up into their classrooms. For about 45 minutes Mama Mary, who is the owner of the school and a certified special needs teacher, gave us an orientation and tour. She told us the history of the school and how she started the school in her home with one classroom. The school is not funded in any way by the government so all advancements are made by donations. Mama Mary is very passionate about working with special needs children and told us how people always ask her why she is spending her life making no profit off of all her hard work and she tells them, “If I can help a child in need, I will be blessed in the eyes of God.” She told us there were two special needs teachers that we certified in Tanzania, her and one other woman in Dar. When we asked she also told us that 92% of special needs children in Tanzania are not in any type of school. And that if they are in a regular government school with no special needs program, the school will not transfer them to a better placement after realizing their needs, because they are receiving money for that child and do not want to go without it. So the children will get passed from one grade to the next and will graduate not knowing how to read or write. 

Their are two speech therapists volunteering the same time as I am so I chose to be with the littles children so that they could use their skills with the older children that are closer to learning English. My children, as far as I know, are from ages 3-7. Usually in pre-school, Tanzanian children are learning English very well and understand the concept of counting and letters. But in a special needs school, they have a hard enough time learning their Swahili, so none of my children speak hardly any English. Most of them can barely color with crayons. But there are a few I have seen that are pretty bright. 

I have a few children with down syndrome in my class, a little boy with dwarfism, and the rest I am unsure of right now. Once I learn the background stories of the children I will be sure to let you know! They all have hard backgrounds and life’s because a disability in Africa is not understood by the people, even the parents most times. All the toys they have are old, broken and dirty. They play mainly with blocks on a straw rug on the floor, this helps with their dexterity, etc. We played for about an hour and then it was “tea time” for us and “porridge time” for them. I have never liked hot tea, but it is rude to not accept so I choked down a FULL cup of lemongrass tea. Although, I did politely refuse a second cup. After tea I went back to the little kids classroom and the teacher had them all sitting at a table coloring, some of them will not color and those that do scribble. She also uses the dot method to try to teach them to trace numbers and letters. There is one child out of the six than can do this. 

The teachers at the school have no certification but have a little bit of training from Mama Mary. I didn’t quite know what to do during this time because the children do not speak English and the young girl who is the teacher does not either. So I just walked around praising the kids and clapping for them. 

For lunch the children all gather and we go back into Mama Mary’s house for our lunch with her. I am not sure what the children ate today but we had a surprisingly good meal. We had white rice, beans, a pea and carrot dish with a ginger sauce and a green bean and carrot dish that was so very good. I am surprised I enjoyed it so much because I have been in a rut the last few days because I have been needing something so familiar and have been craving Western food. Yesterday I felt that if I ate rice and beans one more time I would go crazy. We ate it and I did not go crazy, my craving just got worse. So when I saw the rice, beans and veggies today for lunch I was not so excited, but it was good! Needless to say I think tomorrow night we are going to go out for dinner at McMoody’s. It is a Tanzanian restaurant that serves Western food. Hamburgers, pizza, chicken strips. I cannot wait...!!!!! Mama Mary kept telling us to eat more and more and more and I ate until I was stuffed. Tomorrow I would like to see what the children eat. I am assuming they eat rice and beans. They have to eat soft foods because most of them have poor facial/mouth muscles from their disabilities and lack of talking. 

After lunch the professional class works on bead making. I talked about in an earlier post how they are teaching the older children to make goods so that they will be able to support themselves when they get released from the school. They have a small store where they sell their products. The rest of the children do different things after lunch every day and today’s activity was they sat on a straw rug under a tree and listened, or tried to listen to a book being read. I got to spend some good cuddling time during the story. Sammy, the little boy with dwarfism loves to hold hands, and Lucina (down syndrome) loves to sit in my lap. 

For now on the school bus (a metal jeep with way too few seats) will pick me up from the Oil Com stop and also drop me off there after school. Today I got to ride the bus back and those rough rocky roads are even worse under a dala dala. I have hear horror stories from other volunteers of these dala’s tipping over because of the terrain. The ride was so bumpy that my body came off of the seat multiple times. I do not know how their tires do not pop and their tires rims do not bend. Or maybe they are, and they still drive on them. 

Sammy also has horrible rales when he breathes, so bad that you can hear them sitting across the room. Mama Mary said that she isn’t sure how long this has been going on but that if he needs to, they will try and take him to the hospital. I will take my stethoscope tomorrow and try to see what I can hear, hopefully it is just a cough and will go away. All of the kids have runny noses and drool, and for someone who is not a germ freak.. I have used a LOT of hand sanitizer today. 

Something I have noticed a lot already is that in Africa, nurses are basically doctors. Mama Mary knows that I just finished nursing school and is already asking my opinion about Sammy. She also called me over during outside play time to tell me about a boy who they say has “chiggers” which they pronounce “jiggers” and they say he itches all over his body. Tomorrow they want to undress him so I can take a look at his skin and see what I think. In my mind, it is probably not chiggers... possibly scabies? I guess I will take a picture and see if I can figure something out. But really he needs to just be seen by a doctor. I tried to explain to her that I am not a doctor or even a practicing nurse.. but they just do not see it that way here. I feel a lot of pressure and have a feeling I will keep being asked to take a look at different children. I wish I had more experience. 

Something very cool is that tonight I did take some stitches out of a fellow volunteers foot. Pretty neat. 

For dinner we had “Chips Miaye” and “Chips kuku.” Chips are french fries and Miaye is eggs. So “Chips Miaye” is an omelette type egg with french fries cooked into it. Pretty strange but not too bad if you eat it with hot sauce. “Chips kuku” is fries with chicken. We have had this twice in the three days I have been here. It is definitely a nice change from rice and beans though. I just realized today that the chicken, after cooked, still has hairs on it. But I still ate it, this is how desperate for familiarity I am! 

Karibu Napuru Water Fall

Yesterday we woke up at 6 AM to travel to Karibu Napuru Water Fall. We walked about 15-20 minutes to the Sakina Market and were planning on picking up some food there to take with us for lunch but it was closed. About 22 of us went and we had four “tour guides” but really they were friends of Marks. When we were all at the market the guys flagged down a dala dala and we got one all to ourselves. Which is good because there were all together 26 of us. I think at least four to five people were sitting on laps and two were inside of the dala but hanging outside of the window. We rode this way for about twenty minutes. Even though I am not a claustrophobic person.. dala dalas are so packed that I can’t help but have anxiety. Especially with the insane driving. 

The hike was around 7 km total, mostly uphill and I am not sure how I made it out alive. I was usually in the back of the pack with some other girls and one of our guides, James. It was nice to take the journey slower, for one I wasn’t completely out of breath and dying, and two, we were able to stop and take pictures whenever we wanted and not feel like people were waiting on us. To get there we had to walk through Massai villages and the further you go the less Swahili and more “Massai” language they speak. As we walked through one village there were at least 20 children trailing behind us. When we stopped to take a break they sat down on the hill beside us and waited. When we started walking again, so did they. Almost all of the little boys have machetes, some as young as four years old. When they jump around you off of a raised hill by the pathway you can’t help but worry they will chop off one of your arms or legs by accident.  It takes some getting use to. 

I would say it was about a km or more before we got to the sign for the Water Fall entrance. To get there it was 2.5 km and to get back to the sign it was 2.5 km. It is by far the most strenuous thing I have ever done in my life and probably ever will. The way there was all uphill walking on rocks, large stones and loose gravel. When we finally got to the downslope part of the hike we took a break at a small Massai house. We weren’t sitting there for long when a line of children linked by hands were being led through this mountainous area blindfolded by two men. They were all chanting/singing. The guy in front had a whip and the guy in the back had a tree limb. Every once in a while the children would scream and they would get threatened or the guy with the tree limb would place it a kids face and tell then “Duck duck!” so they would think they were about to hit a tree. Before we knew what this was, we were very worried about the kids. But Kiko and James explained to us that the kids were being taught a lesson for trespassing on a shortcut without paying the owner. They said this is a common thing they do to teach them their lesson and that no one will actually get hurt. I felt better once I saw our guides and also the two men leading the children, laughing.

The slide down the mountain was so very treacherous and it had been raining all morning so the dirt steps (that couldn’t possibly be considered steps) that were leading us down were wet and muddy and incredibly slippery. Being myself, I did not assume I would be doing any sort of hiking, and I don’t even own hiking shoes.. so I only brought mu worn down Pumas with absolutely no tread on the bottoms. After I fell once and wiped out going down these steep muddy steps, James moved in front of me and held my hand the whole way down showing me the best places to step. Even with his help I still managed to fall twice more. It was a terrifying experience. Once we finally got to the bottom (this took at least 20-25 minutes) I was sooo very glad for my life. With every step I took down my feet were slipping. We sat and took a break by a stream for a bit and looked for monkeys and saw a few! I tried to take a video of it and I am not sure if it worked out well or even if I got the monkey in the shot. 

You can see the monkey's head sticking out by the banana tree! Kind of!

From here we walked through a stream to the waterfall and this waterfall was HUGE. I heard it was around 200 ft tall or more. By the time we got the the fall we had quite a group that was following us. Some boys who looked in their teens and lots of little boys, of course with their machetes. Way too soon we started back. I would rather have paid a helicopter to come drag me out of the waterfall then to go up those horrid muddy steps. 

We sat down by the stream again before we headed up the steps. I had a pack of Tanzanian coconut flavored cookies with me and opened them up. One of our guides little brothers went with us on this trek and his name was Frank. I am in LOVE with Frank, he is 11 years old I think they said? He was sitting by me as I was eating my cookies and we shared. Someone asked him who is favorite singer was and in the cutest accent ever he said “Justing Bieber.” I started freaking out! I told him that I loved Justin Bieber too and pointed to Frank and announced that he was my friend. Franks eyes got so big and he says. “You are Justin Bieber’s friend?!” In complete awe. I started laughing and told him no, unfortunately I do not know Justin Bieber, and that he, Frank, was my friend. His brother Kiko had Justing Bieber’s “Baby” on his phone and I think we heard it about 6 times throughout the day. No complaining from me! 

I figured I would have more tread using my bare feet so I went up barefoot with James’ help again.  After we got up the steps, it was all down hill from there but it was decently steep with lots of loose gravel and we were slipping all over. My legs had surpassed jello and turned into complete stiffness and I could barely bend my knees to walk down. 

We finally got back to the town and sat down outside to wait on our dala dala. James and Kiko bought avocados from a little stand that a young girl and her two little bitty siblings were working and we passed some around. I got slightly depressed when I saw children pulling around water bottles that they had made into toy cars tied to a string and they were pulling them around. Some kids were playing by kicking an empty water bottle around on the ground. 

We finally caught our dala dala and squished in. Kiko and James invited us to a birthday party they were having that night for a brother but by the time we got home and showered we were way too tired to go. I am so sore I cannot go up and down steps with grabbing my pant leg and helping pull my leg up. It is a problem! But James offered to take me to see his university in Arusha where he is studying Forestry in August. I think that would be so interesting. Today, us girls plan to relax... go to the internet cafe, possibly change over some money and look for a converter. I would also like to get a cd that I can burn some of the Justin Bieber songs I have on my computer to give to Frank, but I looked and when I switched over my songs to my new computer I didn’t switch all of them, so I only have 6. I think it would still be worth it though. 

July 1, 2011

I have only been in Tanzania now for three days and it feels like so much longer. It is probably due to our three day journey to get here, but I am finally settled in the volunteer house! 

Yesterday morning we woke up at 3:30 AM and got ready to leave our hotel in Dar to come to Arusha. I took the LAST hot shower that I will most likely have in the next three months. It wasn’t even a good hot shower. Africa unfortunately does not get to know what water pressure actually feels like. So we packed up all of our luggage and headed out in the city of Dar at 5 AM when it was still pitch dark. This was slightly intimidating but the city was mostly still sleeping so there were very few people out. In Tanzania there is “Mzungu time” which means “White people time” and “Tanzanian Time” which means NO time. No one wears a watch or has clocks. People can be hours late for something and not even realize it. When meeting someone, you rarely give a specific time and if you do, they most likely will not show up at that time. Maybe I should have been born Tanzanian? This would fit in well with me! When you are trying to take transportation it is not as fun. Our bus was about 45 minutes late to leave so we didn’t head off until around 6 AM. But it was so nice because while we were standing there waiting on the bus in the complete darkness with hardly anyone around us, the call to prayer started sounding chanting somewhere off in the middle of the city but it could be heard from miles away. It was so beautiful to hear. Before we left our small bus stop, we stopped at the HUGE bus stop in Dar. Not exaggerating, there were at least 60 buses there waiting to leave town. Complete chaos. Drivers will hit you in this country and have no problem with it. They honk their horns incessantly. So these 60 huge buses were trying to line up in two rows in one parking lot with around 1000 people or more milling about looking for their bus. By the time everyone got on the bus it was about an hour later.

The bus ride was supposed to be eight hours long but ended up being twelve. We stopped a total of 3 times, with the last being an unexpected one. The first stop was a “bathroom break” but when we stepped off the bus we realized there was no building. The men lined up along the road facing the trees and the women walked in different directions out into the trees. We decided that we didn’t have to go all that badly after all. During the ride they gave us a free drink (mine a coke.. obviously) and Glucose crackers, which pretty much tasted like animal crackers. After five hours of driving we finally stopped at an outdoor market/barbecue, WITH a building labeled “toilet.” By this time I was about to pee my pants. So funny story... all they had were “squatters,” holes in the floor that are like toilets and that flush, only not. I took off my sun glasses, hung them on my shirt and proceeded to squat. As I was standing up my $40 sunglasses (in slow motion) fell off of my shirt and into the hole of the squatter. There was no rescuing them. Even though I am upset about the long gone aviators.. it is still a pretty funny story of my first ever squatting experience.

Next, our bus broke down. So we stood on the side of the road by a house for around an hour. Thankfully they were able to fix it! We arrived in Arusha around 5:30 PM and by the time we got to the house it was packed! Every Thursday night is Social Night and all the volunteers (even the ones at the homestays) meet at the house and they make us a VERY large meal. Lots of fruit, beans, rice, lots of vegetables, and two or three different types of meat. It was slightly overwhelming coming into the house with no sleep and meeting 50 plus people. Not going to lie, when I laid down to go to sleep, I was slightly homesick and I never get homesick. Before I went to bed I took my first of many, many, MANY freezing cold showers. You would think that in Africa where it is hot that this could be nice... it is NOT. The shower is in a room with a toilet and sink, no mirror and no shower curtain. In addition to the cold water there is one trickle of water that runs down from the shower head. Which makes it almost impossible to get washed off and rinse the shampoo out of your hair. Since there is no shower curtain, the bathroom floor is always soaked and always tainted black from the layers of dirt that run off of your body. Bathroom= disgusting. 

*I will put up pictures of the volunteer house soon! I forgot to take them*

This morning we woke up and had orientation, ate lunch, had a short Swahili lesson and then went on a 4-5 hour walking tour of the city/town. In town there is what are called “Dala dalas,” they had the same transportation system in Haiti, but they are vans that are 100-800 shillings one way to ride which is SO incredibly cheap, around 10-60 cents. People cram onto these buses like nothing you have ever seen. There are 14 seats yet sometimes 30+ people cram into one dala dala. There is no such thing as personal space in Tanzania. People are sitting on laps of strangers and some hang out of windows. INSANE. This makes getting off of the dala dala at your stop very hard to do. A girl here was telling us that last week she was on one and they wouldn’t let her off at her stop so she had to take it until the next person got off and walk back about 10 minutes. I am very nervous about these buses. They are color coded and all I know is that the yellow ones take me home. Or near home. From the closest bus stop it is ten minute walk to the volunteer house. 

There were 24 of us in here at this point. This picture does not do justice of how crowded it was! We were on laps!

It was so funny because in our dala dala they play music and as we were all crammed into this dala dala driving through Arusha... thousands of miles away, they played Justin Bieber! Not joking! We made many stops in town. We went to the ATM to take out money and at most ATM’s there are guards with big guns that guard them. People needed to get phones so we stopped at a Vodacom. They have a ShopRite in town and I bought a 1.5 L water bottle for about 50 cents. 

Dinner was a little rough for me. It was the same as lunch pretty much and consisted of plain noodles, beans and vegetables. With all this walking and eating plain food I could possibly be in better shape when I get home! Or not.. we shall see.