First week at work...and other happenings

Hi all,

Kilimanjaro looks beautiful today. The past two days it’s been snowing on top so today it looks like a powdered sugar cupcake. Of course, the one day I choose to buy a fan ($25USD...very expensive for here) it starts pouring and our electricity goes out.

So here’s what’s been happening lately:

-I started work at Amani on Monday. The first day was not so great- the day was filled with too many meetings (close to four hours) and I felt like a few of the American volunteers were not so welcoming. As the week has gone on, it’s gotten a lot better and there are some kids I’ve gotten to know who are really sweet and fun to be around. It’s crazy to realize what some of these kids have been through (abuse, neglect, abandonment, murdered parents, alcoholic guardians etc.) and somehow they still manage to be kids and play and laugh and appreciate small things. A lot of the kids are smaller than they should be for their age because of years of not eating properly or living on the street. Some of the kids that are 11 look 8, and so on and so on. Because a lot of them have also grown up around violence, they are very physical with each other, which can be a challenge. They can’t really pronounce my name (just like in Mexico) so they usually call me Winnie or Whitty and some of the staff members call me Whit. For the most part, I really enjoy being around them and feel like they trust me a bit more each day, which feels very rewarding.

-On Monday night one of the cooks at Amani, Esther, showed up at my house to show me where she lives (nearby). It turned out it was only about a 5 minute walk down some dirt roads near my house. Her apartment was pretty small but still nice. A beautiful photograph would have been of her in her kitchen, which is small and has low lighting. The walls are this bright teal that is fading in places near the sink, and above the faucet she had this bright white plate with red roses on it. For some reason in my mind it was a really beautiful image, as her kitchen really does not have much and yet there are these vibrant areas in the room that in some ways reflect her positive energy. She has two sons and told me that her husband was killed a few years ago by an angry co-worker. I have met so many widows here it’s unbelievable…I’m pretty shocked how common it is. Esther invited me to stay for dinner, gave me about 10 mangoes from her tree and walked me home with her son Freddy. It was like a mini home-stay. It’s funny how in Tanzania people are so welcoming and friendly and within a few hours of meeting you often invite you over. Even with so much poverty, which I admit gets a little bit tiring to see all the time, people are so willing to invite you into their homes and share their lives with you despite their limited resources.

-There’s been some drama over our dog Luna eating the neighbors’ chickens that wander onto our property across the non-existent fence. Ugh. Sometimes our chickens munch on trash in our garbage pit, which makes me not want to eat a chicken for a year. I forgot if I said this before but they burn all the trash here…with few exceptions….so it’s no wonder the ice caps on Kilimanjaro are melting. Also, it stinks (terribly).

-Last week we visited Nshara Clinic in a village outside of Moshi called Machame. The daladala drive out there is probably around 30 minutes, with a really beautiful view of Mt. Kilimanjaro and open fields. It is a short walk to the clinic on a dirt road surrounded by banana trees. The clinic itself is a small one-story house. We met with a doctor who told us that some of the most common problems are HIV, AIDS, malaria, arthritis, dehydration, malnutrition and I forget the rest…One of the more bizarre scenes was this small wooden hut/shack outside with jungle behind it, where they temporarily let male patients rest who have IVs. Most businesses here including the clinic (and Amani also) have tea time at 10 or 10:30, which is when they stop everything and serve sweetened Chai and these thick round donuts I can’t eat that have no holes.

-On Saturday, Nikki, Marilyn and I visited Memorial Market, which is a short ride from Moshi town. From faraway it looked a little bit like a refugee camp since the stands are made out of whittled tree branches topped with orange tarps. It’s a second hand market where they sell t-shirts for 30 to 50 cents and yell out the price over and over and over again to entice buyers. A lot of the shirts are from Old Navy or Gap. Marilyn was telling me that a lot of times when big clothing corporations have surplus clothes they can’t sell, they sell them wholesale to poorer countries like Tanzania. I got a few shirts and I’m having an African style dress made out of a blue kanga.

-My Kiswahili is getting better but I do really miss speaking Spanish. One of my favorite words here is kwasababu (because) haha…I don’t know why. One phrase I’m getting sick of is “Mambo?” (How’s everything?) “Poa” (Cool). I liked it at first, but once you’ve heard it in the street about 1,000 times, it gets a little old and I slowly stop wanting to answer the question. Something else that’s getting old is everyone and their mother asking me about Barack Obama. Sometimes they just say “Hongera!” (congratulations); other times they realize I’m American and just chant his name over and over again, or they say it’s great how I have a black president and go on and on about it (very tiring). Yea. Race here is such a strange thing. Being stared at all the time like an alien, sometimes I just want to say “get over it, I look different,” but I have to keep in mind that people are not exposed to racial differences in the same way as we are in the U.S..

-I’ve done my laundry a few times. The way they do laundry here is first put your dirty clothes in a rubbery plastic bin, add water and some powdered soap, rub it all together with your hands and let it sit for awhile. Then you pour the nasty grey water into our unhygienic bathtub or outside on the dirt and rinse all your things and hang it all outside in the sun in the scorching heat on the line. It actually works pretty nicely and it’s nice not to depend on a machine that I wouldn’t know how to fix if it broke.

-Ok, this is long enough and hopefully it wasn’t a bore to read. It’s pretty strange to be having summer in February on the equator. I keep having to remind myself it’s not July. Thinking of you all and hope life is treating you well. Kwaherini! (Bye).