Nkoaranga Hospital

Day one

Amanda and I have now spent two days at our new placement, Nkoaranga Hospital. In a few weeks I am hoping to get a few pictures of the inside of the buildings/rooms and some more of the hospital grounds because it is almost impossible to actually describe how foreign it is. If you have seen LOST, it looks a lot like where the “Others” live, but instead of proper building materials the hospital is all concrete and metal shingles. I wouldn’t have it any other way though, the locations and structure of the hospital adds to the overall experience we are having, plus it is Africa after all. If you have also seen Off The Map, it is a lot like that as well. And I am not exaggerating when I say it is in the middle of the African jungle. Amazing views. 

We were told no certain time to be there on our first day and decided to take our time getting there and to make it a sort of orientation day for us. We left the house around 9 AM and rode the Yellow dala to Manzini. From Manzini, we caught a green dala to Kilala which is a pretty long ride, at least 20-25 minutes. I had been to the hospital the weekend before on the coffee tour, but I was in a car and just knew the general direction of the village. We decided we could probably just wing it and find it ourselves so we told the dala conductor that we wanted to get off at Kilala and when we finally stopped it thankfully looked familiar to me. We thought the walk was about 1 mile, maybe a little more so we decided to just hike up to the village our first day. BAD IDEA. We will never do this again. It took us an hour and 15 minutes with one five minute break to finally make it to the hospital. 4.8 km ALL uphill. It was all uphill and again, not exaggerating, we walked so high up that our ears were popping from the altitude. Some people call the hospital Mt. Meru hospital because it is on one of the slopes of Mt. Meru. We went home and told everyone that we spent the day climbing Mt. Meru. The walk is absolutely gorgeous, all lush jungle scenery and in front of you and all around you, you see the tall slope of the mountain in front of you and all of the tended crops and huts of the villagers. 

When we finally got to Nkoaranga village we were so exhausted that we stopped by a small shop and bought some “Magi” or water from the Mama. We sat for about 10 minutes on a wooden bench while people stared at us wondering what we were doing there. The village is very remote and the only time they see Mzungus there is when they are going on the coffee tour or working at the hospital. When we walked up to the hospital, (you can’t really say IN TO the hospital because it isn’t an actual building), we weren’t sure who to talk to or where to even go. So we walked up to a random woman who was wearing a white lab coat and told her we were volunteer nurses and that it was out first day. She introduced us to another woman in a lab coat and she walked us to registration. They told us that the doctors were in a meeting and that we would have to sit and wait. This was around 10:30 AM. 

We saw another Mzungu who was wearing nursing scrubs and were instantly relieved that she could possibly be someone to show us the ropes and to at least speak our language. Her name is Tanya and she is a nurse from Belgium. She had finished her bachelor’s and knew she wanted to do overseas work so she even took a Tropical Medicine course and is next getting her Masters. To work with any medically abroad organization, you usually need this course. She is so amazing and well travelled. She is living the life that I would love to. This is her third time at the Nkoaranga hospital with her first trip being in 2008. She had a vision to start a pediatric ward at Nkoaranga and went home in 2008 raising awareness and money to make it happen. She arrived for her third time here in February and will we here until this coming February, a whole year. She has seen to building the pediatrics building and even hiring a man to paint murals on the outside and the inside. All we are waiting for is beds and then it will be officially open for business. She is such an inspiration to me and she has welcomed me to come and work with her in the ward as soon as it opens. I cannot wait. Third world pediatric nursing work... what more could I have wished for! 

On our first day on rounds with the doctor we saw multiple appendicitis cases, a young girl in her teens who swallowed poison, a uncontrolled diabetes case, infected wounds, possible internal bleeding with such a strong pulse visible in her throat and abdomen that it literally looked like it was going to rip her skin open, a few malaria patients, a woman with HIV that will probably pass away soon, and many more cases. 

After lunch we went in to the pharmacy with Tanya to help the ladies in there that were backed up with prescriptions to fill with a line of locals waiting outside the window. Medication is not controlled here and there is no system to it. All the bottles are just lined up on wooden shelves and when you need a medication you just grab the bottle, grab a spoon and start scooping out the pills with the spoon and your fingers and placing them into little plastic bags with instructions on when and how many to take. You take no record of the meds given out or anything.

On our way home that first day we were on the green dala dala and a guy got on and started speaking loudly, he kept saying “Mzungu” over and over again and the woman in front of us turned around and gave us an apologetic look. Before I could grasp what was going on the dala driver had pulled off the side of the road, walked around to the dala door, pulled the man out of the dala and they were throwing punches at each other. The dala driver walked back around to his side, got in the van and we drove off while the man was standing on the side of the road still yelling. I am not fluent but I am assuming the man got on, saw Amanda and I, didn’t like it and started complaining. The driver obviously didn’t like it. Five minutes later we got a flat tire and had to catch another dala after already paying for the first ride. The whole way home we were hollered at and called “Doctor, Doctor!”

Day Two

Day two at Nkoaranga was even more eventful. Crazy things always seem to happen when Amanda and I are together. It never fails. On our yellow dala ride there, we pulled over to pick up more people standing on the side of the road and a boda driver (motorcycle taxi) got into it with the dala donductor. Every time the conductor would try and open the door to let someone in the boda driver would slam it shut. This went on for about five minutes and made us nervous as they were arguing with each other, finally we drove away. Then, when we were on the green dala, there were only four of us still on the dala, instead of the usual 30, and they pulled off the main road and drove around the small village of Tengeru which is 5 minutes before Kilala. We started to get worried so I asked the conductor, “Kilala?” and he said yes. We drove around a parking lot, they exchanged some money with some guys in the lot and we were back on the main road and good to go.   

In the morning before the nurses go in to the wards and the doctors start rounds, we have church. It is a Lutheran hospital and the service is done by a woman priest? I do not know much about the Lutheran religion and I only could pick up every 6th word, but it felt so incredibly nice to be in a church and feel God’s spirit. The church is a concrete room with wooden pews. After her message we sang and it was one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. All of the voices rising together in perfect harmony singing in a language so foreign to me but speaking to the same God, it was perfect. They even started to sing, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus” and I sang along in English. After church the nurses, doctors and assistants stay to report on any new admits that arrived overnight. After that anyone who needs to speak can. 

During rounds we saw a young man who was in a Boda accident and had bandages over 80% of his body and all over his arms. There was a man with TB and HIV who was in a room with 6 other sick people and refused to move to the TB ward so he is currently infecting everyone else in his room, including the young teen with chicken pox. Twice we went into this room and the boy with chicken pox was MIA... walking around the hospital grounds spreading his pox like an idiot. We tried to explain to the nurses that it was a respiratory condition and that he could infect others and we could end up having an outbreak and she just laughed it off. Tanya tried to explain that it was a pretty serious matter and that he needed to stay inside the room and it still didn’t sink in to her. There are vaccinations against the chicken pox here to protect people. During rounds someone came and took our doctor away. We found out shortly after that a young man was ran over by a large truck. The tire ran over him from chest to hip bone. Thankfully it had rained that morning so the ground was soft and he was saved from being severely injured by it. They placed him in the “ICU room” a room just like the others and started him on  fluids. They did an ultrasound and found no bleeding so they left him alone and wrote in the chart to redo the ultrasound in 6 hours. 6 HOURS! In the US... if someone was run over by a small semi... they would be in the ICU being checked every 15 minutes AT LEAST and hooked up to so many machines and medications that you probably couldn’t even recognize them. Not in Africa.

Next we were allowed to draw blood for Malaria testing and also made some blood smears for the laboratory. We walked around with a nurse aid while she attempted to change dressings. My 12 year old sister could do a better job at changing dressings than these people. It was absolutely insane the inadequate health care that was being given and I completely understood while all the people we were changing dressings on had infected wounds. There are no sterile gloves in our hospital, so she put on a pair of clean gloves removed the old gauze and tape, put on a new pair of gloves which is GREAT... and then cleaned the wound out but would wipe the wound and then wipe around the stomach collecting all kinds of dirt and grime from the skin and then run the gauze back over the wound. Once she was finished “cleaning” the wound she kept the same gloves on while she grabbed more gauze and spread it out, running her dirty gloves all over both sides of the gauze bandage before pacing it on the wound and taping it down. Amanda and I stood there glancing at each other to see if the other was as surprised as we were. It takes everything we every learned about clean technique, sterile technique and wound care and tears it to shreds. 

I was shown even more of the African medicine standards when we started med rounds. Each patient with an infection is given Amoxicillin, IV push. They give each patient 3 GRAMS of amoxil a day divided in three doses. ,Each dose is 1 gram or 1000 mg diluted in 8ml of saline solution. They they push the whole 8ml into the IV without a second thought. This is more than 2x the normal dose needed to treat a patient with infection. The get saline out of a bottle all you do is open a syringe and stan it through the plastic bottle and draw out however much you need and use the same syringe until you are finished with rounds. After med rounds for the hour you leave the syringes sticking in the saline bottles for the next medication round in 4-6 hours. At one time, Tanya picked up a bottle of saline and squeezed it a little on accident and saline started flying across the room, all we can do is laugh it off because everything is so foreign and bizaar. The hospital had no power outlets and what power it does have goes on and off 6 or 7 times within 30 minutes time. Needless to say there are only drip IV’s and no one even knows what a drop calculation is. They just set it at what looks good to them and let it roll. Nurses and aids are giving medications to patients without charting anything down, so when we go to give medications we do not know if that person even received their insulin earlier, etc. There were multiple patients that we couldn’t even find their med sheet because someone had lost it. The woman with uncontrolled diabetes had a 462 blood sugar and they forgot to give her insulin, and also forgot to follow up on her blood sugar level. 

There is ONE trash can in the whole main hospital ward and it sits by the nurses station.  To thrown anything away you have to leave a room, walk down whatever corridor you are in and throw it away. There are also only sharps containers by the station so you much carry around used syringes with you until you stop back by. Two sharps containers were sitting right by the trash can and a nurse walked up and threw an empty saline bottle with a syringe sticking in it right into the TRASH CAN, in stead of the sharps container. There are no sinks anywhere but in the bathrooms and the nurses station. There is no hand antiseptic inside of the rooms, people do not wash their hands and we have to carry around our own antiseptic if we want our hands to be clean. 

Payment for services is next to nonexistent and the hospital is in great debt to pharmacies and medical companies. Tanzanians receive free care for obstetric services, HIV, AIDS and TB testing and treatment. Also, children receive free care. But other people who cannot pay usually just disappear and the hospital eats the cost. There was a little girl who died not too long ago of full body burns who was in the hospital for three months. They could not give her any care other that pumping her with fluids and pain meds.. she passed away and her mother just left without saying a word. Three months of care unpaid for but you cannot turn away these children and people who need care. Sooner or later though the hospital may not be able to operate. When I asked, Tanya said they run out of medications and supplies all the time. 

I fully expected what I have been seeing but I could’t really grasp it until now. Nursing in a third world with no supplies or technologies... this is what it looks like and there is not much you can do to alter it or improve. I love every minute of it. 

 A group of German surgeons are coming this whole next week and will be performing pediatric orthopedic surgeries. I am interested to see what they think of how the hospital is run, but I hear from Tanya that it is a huge improvement from where it stood the last two times she visited. It is hard to believe. It would be great to have the pediatric ward open so the children coming in for surgery will have some place nice and comforting to stay. But Tanya does not think that we will receive the beds that soon. 

She told me that there is a palliative care outreach team from the hospital that goes to surrounding remote villages and that on Monday when I go in they would be more than happy to take me with them. She also told me that I need to take time to look at Malaria cells under the microscope in the lab and we have also been told we can stand in on whatever surgeries we wish to. Amanda saw two on Tuesday, but I was content outside of the main theater. 

Goodbye's and Life in General

I had a really rough day today as two of my best friends in Tanzania left me to go back home to France. In the last two weeks I have had to say goodbye to five of my closest friends here. After Elise and Oliwier left today it made me even more upset to think that very shortly I will be losing even another of my closest friends. Being here for three months is a blessing and a thing that mostly everyone envies of me when they are heading back home, but it is hard to sit and watch all of my great friends head back to their lives back home, and knowing that I may never see some of them again.  

Yesterday was departure day at school for Oliwier, Elise and Zuzana. On departure days we have school as normal in the morning and then after lunch instead of brushing teeth or an activity, the children group up together underneath the tree and say goodbye to the volunteers by singing. Every departure day is sad, but this one seemed to hit me harder. Elise and Oliwier spent three months teaching at the school and even living there with Mama Mary as well. It was difficult to see them have to say goodbye to the children and to the teachers as well. 

Usually when volunteers leave they bring a snack for the children as a gift. On this day they got lots of candy and even popcorn. They were in Heaven and most of them scarfed it down in under two minutes. Zuzana is from Slovakia and her mom sent a huge bag of children’s clothing and homemade blankets to her to hand out to the children. The three of them also gave away the majority of their own clothing that they brought with them to Africa. I had to look away many times to hide my tears as they were handing out this clothing to the kids. They had enough that each child was able to get at least one item and some of them two. They were so excited to be getting clothing that most of them put them on right over their own ratted and filthy clothing that wear every single day to school. Oliwier even gave his underwear and socks out to some of the older boys who needed it most, most times they just don’t wear underwear because they do not have any, and every single pair of socks I have seen on their feet have many holes, some of them with half the foot missing. It broke my heart to see their faces while clinging onto their new prizes. It made me wish that I had had my mom send me all of my siblings old clothes the first week I was here so that it would be here now. More than anything though, they need shoes. Older Johnny at school is autistic and I have mentioned before how he runs to school and home from school every day in front of the super safari. He is a tall boy and runs with little coordination. I have seen twice where a little boy will throw sticks and rocks at him on his run home. He lives in a 5 foot by maybe 20 foot stick and mud massai hut and his only pair of shoes is a plastic orange pair of sandals. Today before Johnny left to run home, Oliwier gave him is own pair of sandals which are incredibly nice hiking sandals and will probably be used by Johnny for a very long time. Again, this broke my heart. 

Angie was visiting my school this day as was one of the other volunteer’s boyfriend and the four of us went to collect Yeyoni from her home. Angie had witnessed the state I was in that first day when we went to collect her and she was locked in the hut and had since then heard many stories about Yeyoni. This was my 6th time going to Yeyoni’s house to beg her mom to let her come to school but it was the first time I would be going without a translator. She is Massai and speaks very little Swahili. The four of us walked into their wooden gate and I asked in Swahili if Yeyoni could come with us to school that day. I had no idea what she was saying back to me but we could all clearly tell she was saying no. We acted like we didn’t understand her and sat down to wait for her to get Yeyoni ready for school. Yeyoni was so excited to come with us that she was jumping and singing the whole way back to school. Sometimes, the language barrier is a blessing. Her mom did not want her to go but could not tell us that, so she had no choice but to get her ready and send her with us. 

Even though I shed tears at the departure I was holding it together well because I knew I would have the night to spend with Oliwier and Elise as they didn’t leave until today. We had a great night and then today I was able to spend three hours with them before their cab picked them up to head to the airport. I was crying too much to tell them everything I wanted to as we said goodbye, but they know I love them. :) I am very excited because I think Elise will be able to come and stay with us when Amanda and I spend our time in Paris on the way back. Unfortunately, Olwier will be away at school in England.

Good news: We discovered an amazing roadside food cart that sells the best hamburgers I have had yet. I am sure it is not terribly sanitary and I could quite possibly end up sick sooner or later from the veggies or mystery meat they put on the burger, but I will take my chances and will guestimate me going there at LEAST ten more times before October. I had it once with Oliwier and Elise a few days ago, then I took Angie there yesterday and Amanda wants me to take her this weekend. For a burger and fries it is 2,000 Tsh, less than 3$, I love it. While Angie and I were finishing up eating yesterday I saw a boy in his early teens picking left over scraps out of the trashcans behind the food cart and eating them. I told him to come to me in Swahili and then gave him my leftover fries that I had. He grabbed them up eagerly in one fist and said “Thank you!” As we were leaving, him and his friend started following us begging for money. Oh, Africa. 

Just a reminder, we are blessed :)

Oliwier and Lembris

Angie and Yeyoni

Jeremiah

Elise and Samwely

Porridge time!

Lucy and Housna breaking it down during departure

Goodbye Elise, Oliwier and Zuzana!

Nane Nane

August eighth is Farmer’s Day in Tanzania and in Arusha they have a HUGE festival that is called Nane Nane. When translated this means “Eight, Eight.” All of the schools and most of the businesses were closed as everyone was heading to the festival. The festival was held in a large field and the perimeters were set up with booths of all types. Some showing tractors, selling cheese, doing hair, the local college recruiting, an animal tent, food and drink tents...etc. The festival had been there all weekend and I had heard great things about it, but we went on Monday which was the actual holiday and it was complete chaos. You could not pay me to repeat that day. There were hundreds and hundreds of people there. The whole time we were there we saw three other Mzungu’s around other than us. There is nothing wrong with this other than some people look to us as an easy target. 

At one point in time we were among a huge crowd that was trying to get through this opening in the wall that was about eight feet wide. By huge crowd, I mean at least 100 people. I am sure it was more. We were packed body to body and I was clutching onto the hand of my friend in front of me praying that I didn’t get separated and then become an even bigger target. To make everything better a SUV was sitting at a stop in the opening trying to get through. The people were trying to push through from both sides of the opening and couldn’t because the car was there and the people would not back up to let the car through. We stood for ten minutes just standing there as people were pushing into us trying to yell at the people in front of us to let the car through. No one budged and finally the people right next to me put their hands on the car and literally pushed it through the opening and then people. At this point there were hundreds of people backed up from the stop in traffic and as soon as the car started to move through people went crazy and started shoving and pushing everyone. People were stepping on each other, over each other, and children were getting trampled. Everyone was yelling. The people shoving were yelling and other people were yelling at then to stop. I honestly probably looked like I was going to pass out because I was gripping the hand of my friend as she was pulling me through this mass but our arms were fully extended and I was far away from her. People started reaching their hands into my pockets and grabbing me. Some yelled “Mzungu, Mzungo!” as they were shoving us. For about five LONG minutes I thought I was actually going to be harmed. I probably would have except that God sent a protector my way. A man who was directly smashed up behind me put his arms out on either side of me and was blocking and yelling at people to leave me alone and to stop pushing. It was too crowded and chaotic when we made it to the other side that I did not even see this man to thank him. My friends leading the group were protecting a few children who were getting knocked to the ground. It was chaos. 

After this, Angie and I were pretty shaken up and were ready to leave. Her, Amanda and I decided to go ahead and walk down to this complex named Ngiro. We had been there before and is a very Western place where you can sit down and eat a good meal, there is even a market with western food in it, if you are willing to pat $4 for a small Snickers bar, it is great. It took a lot of will power to walk out without buying anything. We sat and ate while we waited for two of our friends who were still at the festival to meet up with us. 

When they got there they were completely shaken up. Our one friend had been distracted by a group of local boys who were having a rapping contest and he joined in. The girl who was with him was immediately surrounded by a group of guys who started harassing her and trying to knock her to the ground. Our guy friend could not hear her yelling for him and thankfully a police officer came over and chased then guys away. It is very rare that things like this happen and we have to be aware of our surroundings at all times. 

When we were waiting on our taxi driver to pick us up from the complex, our guy friend who felt horrible about letting that happen to our friend was really upset and ended up leaving the complex on a boda boda which is a motor bike taxi here. Amanda tried pulling him off but he was being hard headed and left. It was dark outside and we never take boda boda’s, let alone in the dark. He was robbed on the way home to the volunteer house. It was a hectic day but we all made it home safely and in one piece. But like I said, you could not PAY me to go back. I am always safe and hyper-aware when I am here but some things you have no control over. I am openly accepting prayers :) I promise Tanzania is not a horrible place filled of corrupted people. For every bad experience I have, I have ten more great ones. 

I am picking up quite a bit of Swahili since my students do not speak any English and on a dala dala ride home the other day I was able to have a full ten minute conversation with a very nice older man sitting next to me. I was so proud of my self!! There are always random local people looking out for us no matter where we are who would step in if something were to happen to us and it is very reassuring. I told my mama at school and one of my favorite teachers about our Nane Nane experience and they were deeply upset and concerned that we were unfortunate enough to have the experience that we did. Tanzania is full of goodness. 

Lake Dulutti

This past Sunday was a wonderful day! I woke up and met my friends Oliwier and Elise at the Oil Com by my house and we headed in town to Africafe which is a Mzungu restaurant in town to have a morning coffee before heading out of town to Lake Dulutti. Well, seeing as how I do not like coffee... I actually had a Coke. Is anyone surprised? Hardly. 

To get into town we took a yellow dala from Oil Com to then center of town and then walked about 15 minutes to Africafe. From Africafe we walked another 15 minutes to catch a green dala to take us towards the outskirts of town. Once we get off of the dala it is about a 20 minute walk through the country to the lake. Lake Dulutti is owned by the government and is a not huge but not small. It is a sunken vocanic crater and the center of the lake is 200 meters deep. DEEP. We went on a guided walking tour around the lake and it took a little over an hour to make the trek. We saw many plants and birds. We even saw these four foot long HUGE lizards. There were too many of these for my liking and I was more than happy to get out of the woods and to be sitting beside the lake eating lunch. Lunch consisted of Chips Kuku, chicken and french fries. 

You are also able to canoe at Lake Dulutti but it was cloudy and kind of chilly so we decided against it and just headed back to town and then home. 

Mt. Meru in the background covered by clouds

4 ft. long lizard 

Coffee Tour and Placement Update

Our morning started off by seeing Obama riding a dala

There is a coffee plantation in Arusha that is right outside of town. For a small price the company picks you up in the morning, gives you the walking tour of the village, orphanage, local hospital, and the coffee tour. They even fed us the best Tanzanian food I have had while here. The whole experience was very authentic, which I was not expecting at all. I assumed it would be a huge coffee plantation and we would see lots of other tourists/Mzungu’s there. The whole day it was only Angie, our guide and myself.  Our guide was 20 years old and absolutely wonderful. I had heard from friends that we needed to request him as our guide, but after having a confusing phone conversation already with the owner that morning, I didn’t bother in trying to tell him. Lucky for us when the car dropped us off it was Samwel who was there to show us around. 

We started the morning off by stopping in the local shop and Samwel bought us each a water and then he bought about 7 oranges and an avocado from some boys on the street to take to the orphanage we would be visiting. The whole village was built by a few German missionaries in the late 19th century and since then they have continued to build it up. The church, hospital, and orphanage are all named Nkoarango. 

The orphanage houses children under the age of 5 years. Most orphanages in Tanzania are not like the orphanages at home. An orphanage here is for children who are technically orphans but who are living with relatives or family friends and they go home at the end of each day. There are very few true orphanages that the children actually live there. Nkoarango is one of them, Cradle of Love is another. 

There were two mamas there preparing to feed the children when we arrived. There were at least 20-25 children. They welcomed us warmly and accepted help with the feeding gratefully. Samwel had obviously been there many times before because many of the children ran up to him and were excited to see him back. He was great with the children and did most of the feeding for the littlest kids. 

The children eating maze and beans

A photo Angie got when we had left the orphanage. This picture breaks my heart. 

After we left the orphanage we walked 5 minutes down a hill to the hospital. If you have ever watched Lost, this hospital is very much like the settlements the “others” lived in. It is in the middle of the jungle, and is white concrete sheltered with blue tin roofs. There are many sections to the hospital and all of them are linked together with outside walkways. 

Samwel knew the head doctor well and also that I was a nurse looking for a volunteer medical placement. He mentioned this to the doctor when we were getting permission to tour the grounds and the doctor was more than happy to let Amanda and I come and work there for our last six weeks. We now have a medical placement and it is all set up! We were very worried about finding one because the one where TVE was planning to place us stopped accepting volunteers three weeks ago and they couldn’t find anywhere that would let us come for free. A few people have even cancelled their upcoming trips because they were told they may not get the medical placement experience. It has been a very stressful three weeks wondering where I was going to be placed at this coming Monday. I am very, very nervous about starting at the hospital though because I have no idea how much will be expected of me from the staff and there is always the language barrier to overcome with the patients. We shall see how it goes! While there we also wanted to see inside of the Mortuary and were allowed to go in and they even opened up this large “filing cabinet” that had bodies actually chilling in it for us to see. Samwel said he would be having nightmares for the next week. It was very interesting to see how death is handled here in the hospitals. 

The view of my hospital from on top of the hill

Next we started on our coffee tour and along the way Samwel stopped at every tree and plant to tell us of its use. There is one plant that it is a tradition to give to another person to tell them you are sorry for wronging them. It is not a flower but just a normal long green leaf off of a plant. There is also a plant that holds in its stem the equivalent of our “liquid stitches” at home. Angie had a couple of open sores on her and Samwel applied the clear liquid inside the stem onto her sores. In less than two minutes it was already drying like glue. 

We went first to where the coffee beans are grown. It was a older mans house who lived with his wife and two children. It was not a nice house but the usual concrete slab houses that everyone lives in. He showed us the different stages of the coffee tree process and we even got to eat some coffee beans right off of the tree. Well, you do not eat the actual bean but you peel off the outer coating and then pop the insides in your mouth and suck off the outer juices that surround the beans. Once they pick the beans off of a tree that has been growing for two years, they put them through this machine that peels them and then let them soak in water for three days to remove that sugary liquid outer coating that we tasted. After they are soaked, they are then laid out to dry. Once they are dry, the man who owns the actual coffee business, Frank, buys the beans off of the farmer. 

After we went through the growing, picking and drying process of the coffee we walked to Frank’s house. His house is very nice, VERY. He is a Rasta Tanzanian man and is married to a Norwegian woman, a “mzungu.” They are very rich in African standards and in his yard is where we ate lunch. It was amazing. I ate so much that I could barely function afterwards. 

After, he took us into the small coffee factory where they cook the coffee beans and then grind them. He hires local people from the village to do the work and to hand make the bags that the coffee goes into. I do not drink coffee and I know nothing about coffee, so it was more interesting for Angie to see all the different kinds they made but to me, coffee is coffee and I would rather have a Coke :) The bags are adorable though and the coffee is only $3 a bag so I bought a few.  

The passionfruit was WONDERFUL.. I ate like 3 of them!

Chapati, goat stew, ugali, spinach, rice, fried plantain, veggies.

All in all it was a great day and I was also able to secure Amanda and I a medical placement. I love my children at school so much though that I cannot bear to leave them so I have chosen to spend three days a week at the hospital and then the other two with my children at school. I wish I could take every single one of them home with me.