Quick programming note: the internet is too slow for pictures right now... I'll get them up ASAP. Stay tuned for those, they are way better than my writing!
Thursday August 6, 2009
Greetings from my new home in Arusha! I’m staying with a doctor and her family and I’m sharing a room with Anna, a student/volunteer from Austria. The accommodations are comfortable and everyone has been very welcoming. I’m grateful for this wonderful place to stay, but still getting used to the bucket showers and squatty toilet (it flushes… but it’s still pretty much a porcelain hole in the ground.)
Here is a list of things from today:
- I went to a million meetings… including one with the CEO of the company that makes up 2% of the GDP followed by a meeting with another super rich business man who is the head of the Coca-Cola company in Tanzania, among other things. The latter was at his crazy huge/nice compound. He fed us a delicious five-course lunch, which required eight separate pieces of silverware.
- At another meeting today there was a woman wearing a traditional African style outfit and the fabric was printed with “God bless the friendship of United States and Tanzania” and had George Bush faces all over it.
- I learned that when you are involved in a motorcade, it is best to have a police car in back in addition to the one in front. We have been traveling exclusively via police escort and when there isn’t a cop car in back there tend to be lots of hangers on. Not that it makes any difference to us… but it’s good info if you’re ever to plan one.
- We traveled from Dar es Salaam to Arusha today. We flew into Kilimanjaro Airport and on the way had supposedly great views of the mountain. I slept through it.
Here is another little tid-bit about traveling in Africa: just because you’re in Africa and hanging out near the equator doesn’t mean that it won’t get cold! I am freezing! I wish that I brought way more warm clothes. My old gray fleece will be getting lots of use this trip.
Now I am exhausted. Peace out.
Saturday August 8, 2009
The plan for today is to head out of Arusha and to Rafiki, where there is another orphan center. After time there we will make our way to Langasti, a Maasai village, where we’ll spend the night. It will be cold, cold, cold.
Yesterday was a great day. Anna and I went to the Orphans Foundation Fund office in the morning via bus to meet up with the rest of the group. It was only about three stops but that was enough for me to feel WILD. Crowded and loud and chaotic and very small. Anna was kind enough to let me tag along with her for the day so I got to skip out on all the meetings. Booya. From the office to the center (where they were blasting 50 cent), then to delicious lunch, and then to check in on one of Anna’s special projects. She is sponsoring four or five families by fund raising at home and then working with the families to get them to a place where they can start to help themselves. At this place she had helped them build a chicken coop and then stocked it with 75 chickens. The single mother died three months ago so the kids were on their own and down to only 10 chickens. Anna figured out a plan to get them more chickens, water near their house, and enough money to send the kids to school for another term. We walked back to the bus stop and jumped on for a cross town ride. So much yelling and pushing and honking.
August 9, 2009
Just getting in bed after two days and one night in the Maasai village. It was so beautiful and amazing I won’t do it the disservice of trying to explain it too much in words. Langasti is not tourist village, but a real place (deep in the bush… over an hour on rocky, dirt tracks with small ravines and two-foot-deep potholes) that the foundation has partnered with in order to provide some help. They currently have to walk 18 kilometers each way for water and the land is so dry right now that the cattle, their most important asset, cannot find enough food to eat and are starving. Unless there is a water solution found soon, the people will have a fairly similar fate. They live in small mud huts and cook inside so they are constantly breathing in dark smoke. I visited one of these houses and had to leave after 10 minutes because the bad air was too much. We had a clinic today for the children an 95% had problems relating to all the smoke (ear infections, bronchial infections, cough/colds, and asthma). Many thanks to go Gladness, our Maasai mother, for being such an amazing and gracious hostess.
P.S. we climbed up the almost vertical face of the sacred Maasai mountain and were rewarded with great views of Kilimanjaro… not too shabby.
P.P.S. Dr. Saduti, my hostess/mother in Arusha was watching some music channel on tv tonight. I think Swahili rap might not have a huge audience because the quality of the music videos just weren’t that great. Surprising, huh?
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