First two weeks in the village

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.

Animals from Mikumi

Apparently you get fined $4900 if you hit a lion, good to know

         

                                                                                                            

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.

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.

 Views from the village, pictures do not do it justice

                                                                                                        

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!

Shoes before

Shoes after

                                                                                                                    

                                                                      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. 

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.  

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!!

Just want to leave you with this incredible view of the African sahara