Uru

I haven’t written in awhile, so I decided to post the most important things. The first post I will write is about my visit to Uru. I went on Tuesday with Becca and Sibo to meet the family that Sibo works with in Uru. The family consists of a bibi and four children. One of the children, Bertha, is nine years old and is the size of a two-year-old. She is severely disabled and usually just lies in the bed all day. She was born a healthy baby, but was submerged in unclean water before her belly button had completely healed/closed. She then developed an infection in her abdominal area and so the doctors tried to remove it. They used a syringe and sucked it out of her back. Unfortunately, the also took out a lot of her cerebral spinal fluid as well which left her disabled. The other three children are 2, 6 and 10 years old and they were left with the bibi by their mother. She had arrived one night and told the bibi that she needed a place to stay because she had left her husband. Bibi agreed and in the morning the mother “went to go get breakfast” and she never returned. This family lived in a stick and mud room that they shared with a few cows. The room had no floor, they have no bathroom and it had fecal matter in it as well. Bertha was in the corner of the room where she laid on a plastic lid.

When I went on Tuesday, the mud was the most intense mud I have ever encountered. Sibo’s car could not drive up the hill into Uru because it was so muddy and steep. Uru is located quite a ways past Rau up the slope of Kilimanjaro. We trekked up the hill to bibi’s home behind a local man that was barefooted and carrying two heavy tubs in both hands. It was amazing- but then again, this is Africa. When we got there the kids were covered in mud and the house was messy with flies all around. Bertha was on the bed and we taught bibi how to put a diaper on her. Her legs were the size of a chair leg, and she didn’t have any muscles. It was really shocking to actually touch her little legs. She is very beautiful, but it is hard to be around her and see the reality of this family’s situation. We gave the kids pieces of chocolate and they sucked on them and didn’t chew them because they wanted to preserve them. They also ate them with their muddy fingers – thus getting both mud and chocolate in their mouths. They also were very quiet and spoke kidogo Kiswahili when we spoke to them.

After visiting them and spending time looking that the land and thinking of how to help them move forward we walked back down the mud-covered hill. The people from Uru were trekking back up the hill barefooted while Becca and I took somall and precarious steps. It was really incredible to see this family firsthand because it solidified my reasons for being here. It really changed my perspective and my life and it made me so passionate about coming back. It is amazing how sharing a moment in someone else’s life can drastically alter your own. I don’t know that they will ever know how profound my experience with them was, but I feel very blessed to have met them.

After we met them we went back to the Home Base and my head was full of ideas and things we can do to help that community. Luckily, Sibo was already on it. On Thursday after placement we brought two vans full of the other volunteers back up to bibi’s house and we got to work.  We dug the hole for the bathroom (it was 6 feet and needed to be 12), we tilled the soil so she could have a garden and we spent time with a lot of kids (the neighbor kids and the kids that live with bibi). I held the smallest boy for awhile and he fell asleep in my arms!! Sibo told me that it is sometimes believed that if a small child falls asleep in your arms or on your lap you would have good luck J. It was nice to hear that! It made me feel even closer to Africa. This day of work was really amazing because Sibo was so happy and Becca was really pleased too. After cleaning extensively, creating the garden space and digging the hole we all felt really pleased with our work. It was rewarding to do the work together and we took a picture with the family and some neighbors afterward. It is great to look at each of our faces and see the very pure joy on each of our faces.

I remember coming home and feeling so full of joy and so peaceful. It is so rewarding to know that what you are doing can really help someone and to know that together we were changing someone’s life. I know coming to Africa is about being here and doing what we can for these people. I can’t wait to come back and do more work in the rural communities. As always, I apologize for being late and I love Africa. Ninakupenda sana! 

The Nairobi Post (finally).

            This weekend could also be referred to as – “best weekend ever”, “I want to live in Kenya weekend”, or “way awesome even though I fell into a man hole” weekend. I want to start off this blog post by quickly talking about the previous couple of days before my Friday excursion to Nairobi, Kenya. 

Thursday I went to Magereza instead of Faraja for placement. I got to meet Kira and Rachel’s kids and I really loved playing with Mwantume, Prosper and Edwardi! They were my favorites. I also had a lot of fun singing songs and dancing with them in the morning! They have a lot of cute songs that I really want to teach my kids. Their facility is also very nice. They have a playground, a sand box with tires and a large open area for songs. Each age group has their own classroom with desks, individual chalkboards and painted walls. The students and teachers have their own bathrooms and there is a room in which the kids eat their porridge during break time. Although it was really fun to hang out with her kids and with her I spent the whole day missing my kids. I literally could not wait to see them again on Friday, which also happened to be an amazing day! I taught a lot on Friday, we had songs and my kids colored these awesome fish I made. I also received numerous busu and I had my kids tell me they missed me…so basically it made my life to go to placement on Friday. Have you ever felt like you were meant to be somewhere and simultaneously feel the happiest that you have ever felt? I felt like this on Friday. I knew that these kids were changing my life and that being with them is the best thing I’ve ever done. I really found that my biggest dream of helping people in impoverished places is very close to my heart. I was sitting watching my kids with one on my lap and a few sitting around as we worked on Math and I knew right then and there that this was where I want to be.

Anyway, I am going to get back onto my Nairobi post because I have a lot to say. I will start with the Dar Express. We got to the station at 12:45 because the bus was to leave at 1:30. We made sandwiches after getting back from placement and hurried to the station to buy our tickets so that we were assured seats on the bus. Well, thanks to good ol’ TFT we didn’t even board the bus until an hour and a half after the posted leaving time. Woohoo, thanks TZ – good thing we got snacks. We boarded quickly and had to find seats as they came. We ended up sitting near each other but next to other people we didn’t know. This was alright, though because we were close enough to talk to each other. We settled in for the supposed 8-hour bus ride and set off for Nairobi. We stopped in Arusha, and we watched a creepy movie about a Mayan tribe and their enemies and after only a few hours we made it to the border! Once there we had to get out and go through the departure gate. We went into the little building and had them check our passports and then we literally walked across the border into Kenya. We went into a small area of land that was no man’s land – owned by neither Kenya nor Tanzania and as we went through the gate into Kenya we passed a sign that said “ You are now entering Kenya”. We all had a little moment of excitement before walking into the Immigration office on the Kenyan side and getting our visas to enter the country. This was incredibly fast and painless. It also only took maybe five minutes – which I found fun to compare to my 1 & ½ week wait for my TZ visa. It is incredibly easy to get into other countries in Africa…so that’s way awesome. I plan to come back many times so hopefully I’ll get to visit a lot of countries!

After officially entering Kenya we got back on the bus and drove for another few hours until we got into Nairobi. Initially, I was amazed at the freeway system and the copious amount of streetlights (something that TZ does NOT have). However, as we really got into the heart of the city I found myself in awe of everything! There were actual streetlights with signals (i.e. red, green, walk) and there were skyscrapers! It was incredible. We hadn’t been able to get neither Becca nor Amanda’s phones to work…so we were concerned that we would be stuck on the street once we stopped. Once our bus dropped us off there was an adorable man with missing teeth holding a sign that said, “REBECCA” on it. We were so happy and relieved to see him we got even more excited about Kenya. We soon discovered that it took around 35 minutes to get to our hostel. There were cars everywhere and people walking around and going places in outfits that were actually really cute (above the knee and off the shoulder)! We also passed a shoe store, which made me feel nostalgic for DSW, and other awesome stores and clubs! I immediately felt so happy and excited to be in a big city I just wanted to do everything! We all talked about how we wished we could stay a week instead of 2 days, and we had only been in the city for fifteen minutes! As we drove out of the center of town we started to wonder where we were going. Eventually we reached a dirt road in the pitch black darkness and we all started getting nervous. Our driver said, “I know you’re scared, but I’m taking you to Bush House”. We all sat in silence until we pulled up to a gate and a sign that read “Bush House”. We drove down the driveway and someone unlocked the gate and then we were there! We all laughed about how nervous we had been and then got our stuff and went inside.

The entry to our hostel was a tiled floor with cute couches and plants. The next room was the reception area that held sliding glass doors to the living room, stairs to the rooms and a couple of doors that led to the kitchen area and outside. The living room area had salmon colored carpet, a chandelier, lots of comfortable seating and a television that had cable on it! It was totally interesting to watch television again – it felt really foreign and it made me think I should be doing more productive. We watched a little bit of a football game between Germany and Austria and then before long I decided I wanted to go to bed. Our room was upstairs and at the end of the hall. It contained four sets of bunk beds and we got to share it with a sixteen-year-old boy from Atlanta. His name is Cooper and he decided to go to Nairobi on a whim and began working with these other women living in the hostel. Their project is to build, furnish and stock a new library within a small community outside of the city center. The rest of our night concluded with us spraying our room for mosquitos and settling down for the night. I had a hard time sleeping because I felt weird without my bug net (haha yay, I am accustomed to a bug net now) and because I was so excited for our day on Saturday!

Saturday morning we woke up and the hostel had offered to serve us breakfast. We met some nice people from Mombasa that were attending a wedding in the city that afternoon. I had yummy tea, pancakes and wheat toast! It was so great to eat a yummy breakfast and the view of the garden and backyard was really nice. After breakfast our car picked us up and we drove to the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage.

At the orphanage we learned about the orphan elephants and we were able to watch them play and we even got to pet one! The youngest elephant was 26 months old, and she had a little blanket on her back to keep her warm. She followed one of the men around and stuck her trunk through his arms or wrapped it around his leg and if he moved she followed. It was adorable!! The elephants were orphaned either due to the death of the mother, they were found stuck down wells or in tough situations or they had been the victims of poaching and the mothers had been poached. The center helps to take care of the elephants by providing them with care, food and places to sleep if they are not ready to survive in the wild. People can adopt an elephant for $50 a year and they can see the elephant going to bed and stay with it when they are in Kenya. I won’t lie…I am seriously considering adopting an elephant. Each of the elephants has a name, and you can pick your elephant by looking through their profiles J. So so cute!! I also got a really incredible soapstone elephant and we saw some warthogs and a rhino. The rhino had an injury, so it was kind of sad to see…but the park was really wonderful overall. Each purchase goes toward the orphanage directly and helps the elephants – so I felt that purchasing an elephant here was a good idea.

Next, we went to the giraffe center where we got to kiss the giraffes!! Here we were given a couple of handfuls of food pellets and we went up to a elevated balcony where the giraffes would come and eat food from your hand. If you put the food pellet in your mouth, the giraffe will eat it right out of your mouth! This is how you “kiss” the giraffe. Good thing their saliva is a natural antiseptic, huh? After kissing the giraffes we went down to the lower level and fed one from our hands. It craned its neck down to out from our hands! It was really fun. The giraffe center also has a kindergarten art contest and it supports the vitality of schools. There is an educational speech given in the center room of the feeding area, and there are a lot of factual posters and information about animals as well. The giraffe center is part of a giraffe conservatory that also contains the giraffe manor. Here you pay to live and the giraffe’s live outside your window! When I go back to Nairobi I definitely want to stay there!

After the giraffe center we went to the crocodile park. This was due to a suggestion from our driver and once we got there he helped to find us an amazing guide named David. David was unbelievable! He was incredibly intelligent and very funny. He knew facts about America that even I didn’t know (i.e. the order of the faces on Mount Rushmore, the tallest mountain in America, the mountains in Europe etc.). If you know the answers to these as well…mega props to you! At the park we saw the calm group of crocodiles, the more aggressive group (this group had a blind female, a 50 year old crocodile and a female missing half of her lower jaw) and some babies! We got to hold a baby female and we took some sweet pictures with her. We also got to hold a 50 lb. turtle and her baby! The guide had us put the turtle on our heads and then try to lift it above our heads! This was really difficult, but fun! While TaChyla was waiting to hold the turtle another woman cut in front of her and took the turtle instead. Luckily for TK, the once the turtle was above the other lady’s head, it started to pee on her head! It was so funny and we joked about it being karma – but we did feel bad for the lady and helped her out. After the turtle we saw a gigantic bird’s nest, and we walked to an area that contained a large lake that people could sail on. There was a map of Africa and as you looked around the lake each part of the lake had a sign that corresponded to a country in Africa. This was really cool – the signs also had the country’s shape cut out and things that pertained to the country nearby. We walked around Egypt and went to see an ostrich, a peacock and peahen and a reticulated giraffe! These were all very cute, and while we walked there we looked at the wall carvings that depicted tribal traditions – particularly for the Massai.

We also saw a carving of a woman that was different from the typical Massai woman. This woman had wide hips and a flat face. This was interesting to see because it us an idea of other African tribal people. After the carving area we walked to see a reticulated giraffe, a female ostrich and a peacock and a peahen. The male ostrich had died a few years earlier because someone had fed it a lollipop and it got stuck in the ostrich’s intestines. L Super sad. The giraffe was really cute, and the peacock was quite beautiful. The peacock is the national bird of India, so I was pretty excited haha.

After leaving David our awesome guide we went drove through the edge of Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa (I believe it is the largest slum in East Africa). I wish I could explain this experience more accurately, but there truly isn’t a way to put words to it. Before going into the slum you drive up a little hill and you can see most of it. I literally gasped when we got to this point because it looked like something out of a film. I was instantly reminded of “Slumdog Millionaire”. You see an unbelievable amount of shoddy roofs packed next to each other very closely. As we began to drive in our driver told us about the people living in the slums. The people here walk to the city to go to work everyday. This walk is no less than 18 kilometers a day. The slum was also burned down around five years ago, so none of the structures in the slum were more than 5 years old. There were long stretches of trash on the side of the road and so many people just milling around. I could not believe how big the slum was…we were only driving beside it and it was overwhelming. The smell was unbelievable – it was almost hard to breathe – and the place itself brought all of us to tears. It was hard to hear that there were rich people living within the slum that just took advantage of the poor (this includes drug lords) and when we exited the slum area there were unbelievably nice houses at the edge of it! These houses belong to wealthy government officials. Seeing this was …overwhelming. It really made me think a lot about my life at home, about the things I have been given just because I got lucky and the times I have been selfish. It also made me think a lot about problems that don’t get addressed. It doesn’t make sense to me that these people have nothing and no one helps them. People in their own country, their own people will hurt them, neglect them and take advantage of them. Thinking about it now still brings me to tears. Seeing that just reinforced my belief that this is where I am supposed to be and what I need to be doing. I know that my life will be dedicated to helping people internationally because I can’t just sit around knowing that there are people in Kibera who have nothing and no help. It was really good to experience Kibera with my friends…it really did change me.

After Kibera we went out to lunch at a restaurant named Savannah that was located near the city center. This restaurant was really awesome! It reminded me of home, and it had delicious food. I was starving so my crumbed chicken jalapeño wrap and fries was well appreciated. After this we decided to just walk around and explore the city. I loved doing this because it was like a big city at home – just in Africa. There were a ton of shops and a lot of great tall buildings and things to see. While walking we stopped in a shoe store (of course) where I found out that I am a size 3 here haha! We also stopped at a market and I got some great souvenirs. We had decided to go out to a club called Gypsy that night, and we wanted to stop at the bus station beforehand to buy our tickets for our ride home the next day. We had to hurry to get there before they closed, so we started booking it. Becca and Kira were ahead of Amanda, TaChyla and I and we reached a busy street with a lot of cars that were not obeying the traffic light. Becca and Kira hurried across the first stretch to a small island and then started to cross to the other sidewalk. I had barely reached the island when they began to cross again, so I did not look down at where I was stepping. Bad idea. There had been a manhole covered in cement, but a part of the cement had crumbled away near the corner. I had not looked down, so when I saw them going I immediately went to follow and before I knew it, my left leg had slipped through the crack and I had fallen. At the time I was watching my water bottle roll across the street and thought, “eff, I paid $2 for the giant waterbottle!”  I then quickly pulled my leg out of the manhole and looked down to find a HUGE scrape on my thigh. I ran across the street and stopped on the sidewalk. Even though my leg didn’t hurt, the whole experience was scary. I also apologized for falling (weird, I know) and asked if it was going to scar. By the time I had gotten to the sidewalk Becca was almost down the block, she ran back and saw my leg and quickly busted out her first aid kit. Some things to know about Becca are that she is very prepared and incredibly intelligent. She also keeps calm in any situation, and she is an amazing friend. Haha, yeah I love her if you couldn’t tell. She cleaned my cut with baby wipes from my bag and an alcohol pad (that killed). She then pulled out a pad – yes a female pad – from her little kit and stuck it on my bleeding leg! She used Band-Aids to stick it to my leg, and then I was ready to go! I got really lucky with the fall because the scrape is only a surface scrape – so it won’t scar and it heals quickly! The only downfall to the surface scrape is that it hurt really badly the first two days. I also received a bruise that was black as night on my inner thigh, and a bunch of other bruises around my leg. Though this experience sucked – I am pretty happy to say that if I were going to fall through a manhole I am glad it was in Kenya and I had a pad put on my leg on the sidewalk in Nairobi!! I wanted to tell everyone some outlandish and intense story about how my leg became scraped – but I couldn’t think of a believable one. The boys at CCS did tell me it looked badass and Kira told me I was gnarly when Becca cleaned it later and I just sang, “this really hurts” instead of crying haha.

After my leg incident our driver picked us up and we went to an area called Westland. Here is where Gypsy is located, but we had some time to kill before it was club-going time. We decided to go to a mall around the corner and it was 4 levels!! There were a lot of shops and there was also an Egyptian fair going on.  A lot of people from Egypt had set up stands and were selling all kinds of things! Tachyla and I bought some really beautiful necklaces and Becca got some pretzels (which she had been craving). After this Becca and I went upstairs and found a really nice bathroom where we cleaned my wound for around an hour. While we were doing this a lot of women came in and said they were so sorry and were really kind. An elderly woman came and said she would pray for me, which was very sweet! After we cleaned my wound we decided to go see the Hangover 2! It was only $5!! It was really funny and I also saw a preview for Harry Potter, which made me really excited. I want to go back to Nairobi to see it when it comes out!!

After our movie we went back to the hostel. Everyone there was very nice about my wound, and they all helped me by getting Neosporin and ice for my swollen leg. The next day we had to get up around 5 so that we could get to the bus stop in time for the 6:30 bus (which also happens to be the only one back to TZ). Well, we got up early and our hostel made us breakfast even though it was only 5 a.m.! We were at the bus station by 5:45, waiting for it to open at six. When we got in there was a sign that listed the train and the prices for the trip – to Moshi it was 1,500 Ksh (which is equivalent to around 15 USD) and to Dar Es Salaam it was 3,500 Ksh. The exchange rate in Kenya is 86 Ksh to $1 – so 1000 shillings is around 12 USD. Well…we were the first people in the station and when we asked to go to Moshi the woman told us to wait. She said there were six seats as well. Within five minutes of other people coming and buying tickets we had been told there were no seats for Moshi and a guy told us to go to another station. This required us to follow a grumpy dude through a creepy alley and into a new station where they said all of their buses were full. By this time we were all frustrated, but we were also determined to get home. We went back to the first station and said we had to get on the bus. Of course, they finally let us but we each had to pay 3,500 Ksh instead of 1,500. Fantastic, right? I can’t say I wasn’t surprised though – they know we have money and they put us in a position in which we relied on them…so they got to cheat us out of our money. So we ended up paying almost $40 to get home – but it was worth it because we got there.

I slept almost the entire ride home, and we ended up back in Moshi around 11:30 a.m. On our way back we found a tiny baby hedgehog that Becca named Nairobi. Very fitting. He was injured, so we brought him back to CCS and fed him some watermelon. I spent the rest of the day taking care of my leg and getting ready for school the next day. The new volunteers had gone on safari, so I got to hear a lot of good stories when they got back!! TaChyla and I also had a great heart to heart, in which time I deduced that she is my soulmate J. All in all, Kenya was an unbelievable experience and I cannot wait to go back!

Ninakupenda Afrika. Fanya Kweli . Until I write/post again!! 

subiri kidogo.

Today the group of new volunteers went on the Marangu hike. This meant that I had my little munchkins to myself today. It was a pretty fun day, minus the fact that I thought I had malaria and felt awful this morning!! I woke up with at least sixty bug bites this morning. A lot on my arms, some on my right leg, a bunch on my upper back and a few on my neck! It sucked so badly, I couldn’t believe it. Not to mention that I also hadn’t really eaten dinner last night and ate a small breakfast today – which led to me feeling weak. I think that my problem was that I ate too little the past couple of days, not malaria. I still had a mini scare this morning though what with waking up covered in bites and feeling light headed and nauseous. Never come to Africa and forget to lather yourself in deet. I must have received them all last evening when I wasn’t wearing a lot of bug spray! Ahhh. So awful.

            Despite feeling ill I went to placement and I was really affected by watching my kids today. It was a pretty average day except one of my littlest ones got really scared and ran to my side so I cuddled with him and comforted him for awhile today. One of the teachers hit his leg with a plastic ruler (which was really upsetting for me) and he got terrified of the sound and the pain and came running to me. I just took care of him until he calmed down and felt better. I also watched a lot of things that made me reflect on the difference between here and my home and the reality of the lives of children here. One thing that happened was that two cute girls in my class came to me and said, “mwalimu angalia!!” and as I turned I saw that they had a marble. This green orb became a treasured possession as these cute girls began to pass it to each other and roll it around on the step. Immediately after this one of my boys called for my attention and he had bunched a black plastic bag into a ball and was kicking it excitedly. Soon the ball fell apart and he was hitting the bag and making it bounce around. It is so beautiful how children are able to find joy in simple things and are also able to love life itself. These kids were playing with a marble and a plastic bag and they had the biggest and brightest smiles I have ever seen. I thought about kids at home who have balls and toys and jerseys and whatnot and I thought about the fragility of life and the necessity for joy. I know that these kids have very little, but what they do have is big. In many ways these people are so much more rich than I am…and I am so happy I can learn from them.

            We also took Kira to get her yellow fever shot for Kenya today. I am so glad she can come with us!! I am also unbelievably excited for Kenya…woohoo! I think I will love every moment. This is because it is Kenya and also because I am going with my favorite humans J. While waiting for Kira to get her shot I sat with one of our local volunteers Daniel and talked about his future aspirations. I was amazed by him and I realized that his dreams are so important for the world and so meaningful! As a twenty year old he has already begun to create a nutrition-based initiative for kids in Tanzania. He began by providing chickens for the kids at the juvenile detention center so that they could have a source of protein in the form of both eggs and the meat of the chickens. He now wants to start and NGO that will provide both education and healthy food to families in need in TZ. Super incredible, I know. J

The rest of the day was pretty normal. I basically hung out, did my laundry, watched some movies with the friends and we played with a hedgehog! I love Africa so much and I am so happy to be here. Now it is time to take some Benadryl, coat myself in anti-itch stuff and tuck in the net! Lala salama. (oh p.s. I am getting so much better at my Swahili! The fluency by August plan is in the works!)

"subiri kidogo" - 1. wait a moment. 2. a phrase I know all too well.