Hello everyone! I
haven’t been in touch that much lately because the power keeps going out here
so we have had no internet, but wifi is currently on so I am going to update all
of you on what has been happening. Two
weeks into village life and I am LOVING it!
Of course there are struggles- power goes in and out, limited water
supply, no chocolate, and all the locals stare at us ALL. THE. TIME. The children especially all gather around and
point and yell “Mzungu, Mzungu!” (mzungu= white foreigner). You would think they would get used to us
after awhile, but it seems we sprout a new head every time we walk out our
front door. Oh well, that’s rural Africa
for you. So anyways, what have we been
doing so far…. Two weeks ago we went on safari at Mikumi National Park. We saw tons of zebras, giraffes, hippos,
elephants, wildebeest, antelope, water buffalo, and my favorite- baboons! Me and Scott were with Sarah and her two
kids, Logan (another volunteer from the states), and Ema (a wonderful boy from
the Masaai village who goes to St. Mary’s).
We had a great time getting to know everyone and seeing the beautiful
terrain of Tanzania again.
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| Animals from Mikumi |
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| Apparently you get fined $4900 if you hit a lion, good to know |
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| Samweli showing off his shoes |
The next day, I awoke to sounds of children calling my
name (Teachaa Chaaaleene), I guess everyone found out where we live! Farida, Joann, and Samweli came in and played
with us, we took pictures and showed them a movie (Finding Nemo..they loved
it). They also found my stash of clothes
and shoes I brought from the U.S. and were so blown away with everything, I
told them they could each have one thing.
You would have thought I told them they won the lottery, the smiles on
their faces were incredible. So Joann
chose a teddy bear, Farida a skirt, and Samweli took a pair of Nike shoes Sue
Gammill bought at Goodwill (Thanks Sue!)
I could tell he had never seen a nice pair of shoes before, his were
plastic and falling apart. There’s no
greater joy for me than seeing these children so happy.
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| The kids taking their English midterm |
I started school at St. Mary’s on Monday to meet all the
children I will be teaching come August.
It was the end of their school year so we handed out their Math and
English midterms. The kids are all so
cute and sweet, I can tell I am really going to enjoy being here. Because they are short on books, the walls
have been painted with letters, numbers, and months of the year. They are very resourceful here in Africa,
because you have to be!!
Every Monday,
local vendors from around the village come to Berega and they put it all out
for a market; they sell vegetables, fruit, clothing, straw mats. Everything is super cheap, except when they
give us the ‘mzungu price’ which is hard to escape from because everyone thinks
that just because we are white, we are rich.
Well I guess we are compared to them, but it still isn’t good to be
taken advantage of. The market can get
uncomfortable because of all the staring and people will just laugh when you
try and talk to them. Seriously, no tact
here at all. At least in America we wait
til the person has left the room to start laughing at them, but hamna shida (no
problem) you get used to it. On the way
home, Scott took me by the plantation where he is going to be working in the
farm and doing construction. We walked
past all the mud huts and the children playing in dirt, and then came up to the
best view of this gorgeous mountain range we are surrounded by, the sun was
going down behind the mountain and beautiful pink and orange rays shone in
every direction, then it started pouring rain while I was watching the sunset
and I heard African music playing from nearby.. all of a sudden I was like “Holy
crap..I’m really in Africa!!” It was the
most surreal and beautiful moment of my life.
I don’t think I realized where I was til just then. The rain started coming harder so me and
Scott ran home holding hands, dodging the giant mud holes in the road and
getting filthy and soaked. Probably the
most fun I have had in a long time.
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| Views from the village, pictures do not do it justice |
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| The kids with all the stickers on their foreheads |
I went to eat lunch with the kids for their last day of
school. They were all so excited,
everyone wanted to sit next to me and talk to me and hold my hand. We also played Simon says and Elephant,
Elephant, Lion (or as we know it, Duck, Duck, Goose), they absolutely love
playing games and I got super dirty (it is so dusty here!), but it was totally
worth it to see their sweet smiles. At
the end, I took out my sticker book.. they acted like I pulled out a
million shillings! There were all stoked
and kept pushing each other to get to me first.
But I made them stand in line and tell me one at a time what they wanted
to be when they grew up- I got a lot of teachers, a lot of doctors, and a lot
of pilots. They all wanted me to put the
stickers on their foreheads, it was the cutest thing. On the way home, I noticed one of the little
girls had shoes that were torn to shreds, they were barely on her feet
anymore. I held her hand and brought her
to my house where I had her put on a new pair of Mary Janes that she
loved. Those shoes were $2 in America
but the joy it brought that little girl was priceless. No better way to spend my afternoon!
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| Shoes before |
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| Shoes after |
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| Isn't she cute?! |
Since school is out for the summer and I am not able to teach,
I have been volunteering at the hospital with Dr. Dave. He is a retired pediatrician from the UK and
allowed me to follow him around to see children at the hospital. Of course, this place is really sad but super
interesting for me since I want to be a doctor.
The hospital is very poor and has limited resources, but there are
some basic medical supplies and intelligent staff members. No one speaks very much English so of course,
the language barrier is difficult. The
hospital is the only medical resource around and serves 400, 000
Tanzanians. No one really comes to the
hospital unless they are super sick because people cannot afford the
transportation or there are no accessible roads to get here. Most of the children we saw had a severe form
of malaria (the biggest killer of children by far) and many had third degree
burns because they had fallen into a fire (the primary way of cooking
here). Of course, many children were
malnourished but we hope that the nutritional supplement Scott and I brought
from the states will be helpful for that.
I also visited the maternity ward where I am sad to say many babies do
not make it, and many of the mothers are 15 and younger, and what is even sadder
is the high rate of babies with HIV. But
the babies are so wonderful and gorgeous, I am telling you there is something magical about
the children here.
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| Murals on the walls of the hospital, teaching the basics of health and nutrition |
I am learning so much at the hospital and I am starting to
think that I maybe want to go into international medicine…. Especially since I
found out last week that I got into medical school at Mercer!!!! AND they are allowing me to defer my
acceptance so I can start next August when I get back from Africa!!! Oh my goodness, I was so incredibly happy, I
could not believe it. I had pretty much
given up hope of med school but God knew what He was doing all along. This just reaffirmed my belief I am EXACTLY
where I am supposed to be. I am not sure
if I would have came to Africa if I had gotten accepted before I left, but
because I was accepted a week after I got here I didn't even have to make the
decision! God’s timing is so perfect. Now
I can fully enjoy this next year teaching and loving on these children, knowing
that when I get home I will start a new chapter where I will hopefully be able
to help more people in the future. God
is so good and I am incredibly blessed!
Sarah and her two kids, Ayla and Jovi, went home this week so now me and Scott are the only Americans here, with the other four mzungu being from England and Germany. This made our fourth of July almost nonexistent as you can imagine, but we had a lot of fun imagining all of you out on the lake, shooting off fireworks, grilling hotdogs and hamburgers with chips and potato salad and watermelon and cookies..mmmmhhh.. as you can tell, we missed out. But hopefully all of you had an excellent time!!
With that being said, by far the biggest challenge here has been food. There are not very many things you can get in
the village so we have been living off of the vegetables we get from the Monday
market, and the huge bags of rice and beans we got in Morogoro.
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| Monday market |
Cooking is really hard here too, there is
only certain water you can use for boiling, the knives are worthless,
everything has to be sifted because there are rocks and sticks in everything,
and the food takes forever to cook. Man
do I miss microwaves. But I am proud to
say I succeeded in making my first African dish all on my own, fried eggplant
with tomato sauce over rice, everything made from scratch and it was
delicious! Took me three hours to make
it, but totally worthwhile. Did I
already say I miss chocolate? Because I
do. So much. But we are going to Zanzibar on Monday for
our vacation (tropical paradise, here we come!) so it will be nice to eat some
normal food and not have to worry about cooking. Then we will be going to Arusha for two
weeks to visit the children at the orphanages Scott and I volunteered in last
summer, I am so excited to see those kids!
Which reminds me, I haven’t told you about the orphanage here in Berega
but as this post is already really long, I will save that for later. Hope everyone is well, please be thinking and
praying for me here and I will do the same for you. Until next time. Qua Heri!!
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| Just want to leave you with this incredible view of the African sahara |
