Happy Thanksgiving!

25 November 2009

We finally moved into a new apartment in town. It is a two bedroom place that we are sharing with one of the basecamp volunteers who is also here long term. It is on Fire Road, which is not far from Clock Tower, a central landmark in town. We are getting adjusted to our change in location, but some things are easier than others. We had gotten to know many of the people who lived around our old house so they no longer called us mzungu or thought we were tourists. We are now trying to create those relationships again with the people in our new neighborhood, but hopefully since we are more comfortable here and know Swahili better, the process will move a bit faster this time. We are also anxious for the street peddlers in town to get to know us so they stop asking us to book a safari ten times a day on our way to work. Our new apartment in pretty nice, though. We have a fridge, a hot plate and a western toilet, which is awesome. We also have a TV with cable, amazing enough! We spent our first days here trying to watch the news and get caught up on what is happening around the world since we have been so removed for the past few months. I think it will work out well for the next four months.

27 November 2009

Yesterday was our first Thanksgiving away from home and it was better than I had expected it to be! We went back up to the basecamp house and had a big dinner with all the volunteers. Everyone cooked their own special dish and it was delicious. No turkey or pumpkin pie, but the food was all really good and everyone pitched in, which was fun. Zach and I made a makeshift version of stuffing made out of a Supaloaf (their bread) and rice. It was not quite like stuffing at home, but it was yummy and everyone liked it a lot. After dinner we got to talk to all the parents at home, so that was a great ending to the day. Although it was hard to be away from home it was a Thanksgiving that we will definitely always remember.

We also have some exciting, and surprising news! I think we have blogged previously about the dogs that we rescued from the street up by our old house…? Well, basecamp took no responsibility in taking care of the dogs long term and the girls who brought them home are now gone (they arrived the day we did). The new volunteers who came in were not crazy about the fact that there were dogs at the house and aren’t really willing to help take care of them. Basically if someone doesn’t find a new home for them, they will get put out on the street and probably survive for less than a month. One of the older volunteers (and our new roommate, Stacie) looked into taking them home, and found that it is not very expensive and there are no restrictive requirements about bringing them into the country. The only thing is that she would only be able to keep one of them once she gets home, so Zach and I are going to take the other one! She will live at my mom’s house until Zach and I move and can take her with us. She is a mutt and adorable. The picture on this blog is of her when she is just a couple of weeks old. We are re-naming her, though, to something in Swahili and are torn between three names, so we are going to post them all here and if you are so inclined to give your input, we would love to hear it. Here they are:

Kianga (Kee-on-ga) – means Sunshine in Swahili

Malaika (Mah-lah-eek-ah) – means Angel in Swahili

Karanga (Kah-ron-ga) – means Peanut in Swahili

Anyway, hope you like at least one of them for our new little Tanzanian pup. They are learning both English and Swahili right now, so when we get home they will still be able to understand people, but we also want them to stay connected with their heritage by learning commands in Swahili J.

Written by Whitney

Tough Realities

20 November 2009

Today was awful. Got up and was tired after a night of little sleep and I was not feeling great, but we were scheduled to give a presentation so I got ready and we headed down to the CWCD. Before the presentation Mama wanted to show us an apartment we could possibly rent out that her sister owned. We left the CWCD and turned onto Arusha to Moshi to road. Not far ahead of us there was a large group of people standing around and the cars were backed up. We figured there had been a fender bender with a daladala or something. As we got closer I couldn’t see any sort of cars and all of a sudden Mama was saying something about, “Oh! Watoto! Oh!” I looked out the car window and saw a small body lying on the road. All around on the ground were body parts and insides scattered around. It must not have happened very long before we drove by because the only person around helping was an older lady who was just laying some cloth over the bodies when we drove by. There were no policemen or doctors anywhere to be seen, and also no car that seemed to have been the one that hit the children. Supposedly when this happens here, the driver just keeps on driving because if they were to stop and pull over they would be beaten or stoned to death by the bystanders of the crash.

When we pulled away I became increasingly nauseous and could not get the image out of my head of the children on the road. I told Zach that there was no way I could go give a presentation right now, so Mama dropped me off at the house and Zach went back to the CWCD to talk to Peter about rescheduling our presentation. For some reason Peter was really insistent on going, so Zach told him to at least call and confirm and tell them that they were going to be late. The head teacher at the school told Peter that they would not be able to go because the two children who were killed on the road were students at their school and they were trying to put together a school assembly to calm all the children down. Zach came back home right away.

When I got home I walked straight to my room without talking to anyone and shut myself in the bathroom. I immediately started sobbing. I composed myself as much as I could and went into my room and crawled into bed to try to rest, decompress and try to make sense of what happened. I lied there crying for probably a half hour before finally falling asleep. A few of the girls in the house came in to try to check on me, but there really wasn’t anything that would make me feel better or make those kids live. That was the first dead body I have seen and definitely the most graphic display I have been exposed to. I think the reality of life and how quickly it can end hit me really hard. The fact that it was two children only made it worse. It was also a reality check at how brutal life can be here, especially for children.

(The picture here is of the security fence around the CWCD. Many of the houses and buildings in town are surrounded by these walls...pretty intimidating.)

Written by Whit

Termites

18 November 2009

Before today, our last two presentations were to very large groups of students: 140 at Meru Primary School, and 175 at Makumbusho Primary School. Although it seems like we could be very efficient presenting to that many people, it was very hard to keep command of the classroom. The classrooms of the government schools (which both of these were) are cinder block rooms with many large windows as the source of light, but there is no glass in the windows, so external noises infiltrate the classrooms very easily making it very hard for the students to hear at times. Even with the outside noise and other distractions (sitting four students to a tiny desk, heat with no air flow, ADD) the children are extremely well behaved and seem to pay great attention while we are presenting and Peter is translating. However, once we finished at both, and started taking questions, they completely lost focus in these large groups. The most frustrating part was the questions that they asked. Many were very simple and were easy concepts that we had just covered during the presentation; many pertained to the ways in which HIV is spread and we thoroughly cover that for a large part of the presentation. I don’t know if my frustration stemmed from the fact that we just covered it and were being redundant when we could be answering other questions, or if that is just the level of knowledge is so elementary because they never talk about reproductive health at all.

These large groups do allow us to convey our message in a very efficient manner, and Whit and I just hope that some of our message sinks in.

We have been looking for apartments the last few days since Basecamp is finally refunding our last 6 weeks worth of room and board. They held out solving our rooming situation just long enough for us to pay for the more expensive, first 6 weeks of our time in the house, but I guess some is better than none in our situation.

Looking for housing here is so frustrating (surprise, surprise…what isn’t). None of the apartment building have an office, and if we find a phone number, we have a horrible time trying to communicate what we are looking for and what services they provide. You really have to know someone who knows someone who might have a spare room available; since Whit and I don’t know too many people yet, we are having a very difficult time. Plus it is going to be our first house on our own as a married couple and we don’t want it to be too horrible...the search continues.

This morning it rained harder than I think I’ve ever seen it rain anywhere. Arusha, and the whole area, has been waiting for the rain since last April, the last rainy season. This intense rain brought out one of the survival foods in the area: TERMITES. They emerged from under ground by the thousands, and the two puppies were completely enthralled with trying to catch them in midair for breakfast. Apparently many people catch them and fry them, but Isaac, our cook, walked out in the rain and grabbed a handful and gobbled them raw. Of course I had to try one (When in Rome…), and there really was no taste, and the crunch that I was expecting was replaced by a very soft texture. The closest I can describe it was a flavorless raison. I could easily survive on tasteless raisons; Whitney couldn’t, but I could. The intense rain along with the plague of flying termites made for a very fascinating morning.

As soon as I started to complain about presenting to too large of a group, Whit and I were blessed with an extremely small group to present to this afternoon. We talked with 9 students and two teachers from a training college (similar to a tech school). I was quite disappointed that the school only brought 9 students, but I guess I’ve learned that nothing is as I would hope or expect it to be over here. The presentation went very well. The students were older with more life experience, and they asked us questions that tested our knowledge at times. We spent over 2 hours with these 11 men (no women came today).

There were a few comments from the group that were great chances for discussion:

- One person asked that if people are on ARVs and become healthy, they will continue to spread the disease, so wouldn’t it be better if they just died?

- One person brought up Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, who denied the connection that HIV causes AIDS. The man wanted to know the real connection between the two. It is amazing how detrimental a few of the African leaders have been to the fight against AIDS in all of Africa. I had no idea that Mbeki had that much influence throughout the whole continent.

- If I were HIV+, how would you talk about me to others or treat me? Why do people always treat HIV+ people badly?

- Many people here believe that if someone is HIV+, they can have a religious leader cast out the virus from their body and they will become negative.

At the end of the presentation, the teacher and the assistant expressed their extreme gratitude for the work we were doing for their school and other schools in Arusha, and they also extended a challenge to us that we needed to also convey our message to the villages (which we will and have tried). He said that people in the urban areas have a good grasp of HIV, but those in the villages are clueless. Based on their questions, I could tell that their level of understanding was not anywhere close to par, and it scares me to think that they are the people who feel knowledgeable about the disease. I extended the challenge back to them that since now they have heard and know more about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health that it was their duty to talk with their friends, family, colleagues, and future children about the things that they weren’t taught growing up.

This presentation was one of the best yet, but it is so hard to think that there were only 11 people there to witness it. There are so many people and so little time, at least with what we are doing in the here and now. Whitney and I are definitely realizing that we want to be involved in policy making that will affect very large populations. I guess you can’t make it to those positions without having done this type of dirty work.

(This is our view of the class at Makumbusho of 175 students. You can see Peter towards the back translating.)

Written by Zach

Christmas Starts in November Here

14 November 2009

Today was a really fun day. We went to the Christmas Fair at the TGT Coffee Hotel, and we had a great time. It was of course mostly mzungus, but a lot of the proceeds from the fair go to charities in Arusha. It was mostly local people selling crafts and other goods, but some of the people came all the way from Mombasa, Nairobi, the coast and other parts of Tanzania and Kenya. Zach and I made a few purchases, including an Advent calendar made out of kitenge fabric, some Christmas ornaments, a bag with Maasai beading on it, and three jars of chutney made by a local group of women. One of my favorite things, though, was a bag made out of sisal, a kitenge, and a recycled flour bag. The bags were made entirely from scrap materials by women who are HIV+ and they are paid good wages to support themselves and their families with. The program was started and run by a woman from Florida. I was pleasantly surprised at all of the booths filled with crafts made by people with HIV that seemed to be doing quite well. And although I say that I like buying things that are “for a good cause”, here almost everyone and everything is a “good cause”.

Zach and I also finally got the go-ahead to move out of the Basecamp house and get our own place. For those who didn’t know, when Zach and I got here we were told that we didn’t have our own room and have been living in boy-girl separated rooms with bunkbeds in them. After a month and a half of fighting with the company, we are getting the last of our money back and moving out early. We are excited to finally get into “our first place” J, especially since we have yet to call a space our own since the wedding. We are going to start looking tomorrow and calling around to see what we can find for a reasonable price. Technically everything here is a reasonable price, though, so it will probably more come down to location. To have to be completely independent from here on out makes me a bit nervous, but we have met people here who have treated us like family that we could call should we ever need to…let’s just hope we don’t.

(The picture here is of me swinging at CWCD that Zach took.)

Written by Whitney

Street Pedicures

10 November 2009

Things are still going well here. We are still presenting to groups daily and have presented to about 325 people so far, which feels good. It is nice to be able to quantify somewhat our work here. With each group we get different questions, but the last groups we have been getting some interesting ones about the origin of AIDS. There was one question about whether AIDS was sent from Europe in contaminated condoms, and another about whether the US has a cure for AIDS, but is hiding it from the African people. Although these types of questions are frustrating and heart breaking, I am glad that people feel that they can ask them and that we are able to clear things up. Peter, our presentation partner, says that mostly uneducated people believe things like that, but that question came our during a presentation to a group of college students, and unfortunately, many people here are uneducated.

Since the days are getting a little more monotonous and there is less and less to write about, I am going to start supplementing my entries with little fun facts and interesting things that we see here. Today’s topic is ‘street pedicures’.

So, on the streets of Arusha there are men who walk around carrying little, dirty old plastic baskets. They are full of half filled bottles of no-brand nail polish, old files, pumice stones, nail clippers, etc. For the equivalent of about $0.75 you can have these men give you a ‘pedicure’. Since they are so cheap, many of the women here can afford this luxury and have manicured looking feet, which is a feat on its own in Africa (no pun intended). Despite the fact that it is the deal of the century for a pedicure, I am hesitant to try it out. If I end up braving it sometime I think I will probably only request the paint and opt out of the probably germy tools. I’ll let you know how it goes J

(The picture here is of the back side of Central Market, near the center of town. This is about average for the number of people around all the time. Sometimes its pure chaos.)

Written by Whitney

Progress in Schools

5 November, 2009

We were scheduled to go to the village of Monduli today to talk with a group of adults as well as a group of students at the Maasai Girls School. However, as happens frequently here, plans changed, and that trip is postponed til next week. But, we did pay a visit to the Patandi Primary School and spoke with a group of Standard VI and VII students (about 12-15 year-olds). This school is quite amazing as it serves hearing and speech impaired children, mentally disabled children, and children who have no disabilities.

We took the very reliable yet very awkward and uncomfortable dala dala to and from the school. It still amazes me after a month to see the sheer number of people they stuff into the one dala dala. It feels like people are so crammed in that they mesh into one big, stinky, human blob, and when a member needs off, the blob shifts like a rubix cube until the person is somehow spit out where they need to be; then three more members join the fun of the blob with their luggage. I can’t believe Whitney hasn’t had a terrible fit of Closterphobia yet because dala dalas seem to be the breeding grounds for it.

We went to present at the school with Peter, our translator, who is a social worker fresh out of school. He has had a little training in HIV/AIDS counseling so knows a little about the topics we present. I was a little worried that since he already knew about the topics that his translations would turn out much like the first village we visited, where Mama Hindu already knew everything and so Whitney’s and my part of the presentation would seem pointless. This was not the case at all. Peter knew the information well enough to be able to explain the points that Whit and I were presenting in English, but would not have been able to present on his own. Hopefully presenting with him a few times will make him comfortable enough to visit schools on his own and we can pick up a new translator to “teach”. On the flip side, I can pick out a lot of the words and phrases that he says in Swahili that match what Whit or I said in English. We made a good team.

There were about 60 students in the classroom that we presented to, and the trend that we have seen in students once again held true; they asked so many wonderful questions about puberty, pregnancy, STDs, and HIV. Their questions were so in depth about some aspects that Whit and I felt we needed to leave them condoms with them, because they obviously could use them. The teacher said that she didn’t want to promote anything, but we told her that they were obviously active with or without condoms, and she caved and told us to bring back more the next time we present there (we were invited back to talk with more students and the teachers) for all of the students. This was quite a large victory for us as we at least changed one teacher’s outlook. It is easy to see how the AIDS epidemic is so bad here, as children begin to have sex at an early age, have nobody to talk to about it, and the leaders here are in denial and don’t take the measures needed to protect their people. I feel like we took a baby step today.

After this presentation, we walked across a field to the neighboring Patandi Teaching College, where they train pupils to teach to special needs students. It’s good to see a resource like that here. We talked with Principle Mahoga (over tea) about presenting to the classes at the college, and he offered up every Monday afternoon from 3-4pm. There are about 250 students at the college, so our Monday afternoons will be busy for the next few weeks.

We talked with a teacher at the CWCD, and he told us about how poor Sex Ed is in the schools here, and it is basically up to the teachers to decide what they teach, but apparently most just don’t do it. Whit and I have been tossing around the idea of trying to talk with the City Council (if that’s what its called here) to talk about a possible mandatory syllabus for this subject that would be implemented into the schools, even if they have to train new Sex Ed teachers who only present on that info. It’s a lofty goal, but we could affect so many more students in that way. Guess we’ll see what happens.

6 November, 2009

Today we went with Peter to another school, Ilkiurei Primary, in hopes of talking with more students. This was a governmental school, and governmental schools are not English medium, so we needed a translator again. Once again, there were about 60 students in this class, and we saw very similar questions from the students to those asked at Patandi: very in-depth and obviously from experience. However, before we even started, the teacher told Peter in Swahili that we could not talk about condoms, we could only briefly mention them to the students. We didn’t even get a chance to talk with her about the issue before she was gone; I guess you win some and you lose some. But we did share some very important information with these kids, and once again, the head teacher invited us back to present to more classes.

It is amazing how days like this can make us feel so good about ourselves, and then there are other days where there is absolutely no point in us being here. We keep reminding ourselves that we are here for those good days. I think the hardest part of being here so far has been the total lack of control that Whit and I have over anything we do. We haven’t been involved in talking with the schools hardly at all, though not for a lack of trying; we don’t have control over the translation of our message, though we’re still slowly learning Swahili; we have no routine yet, although we seem to be filling our schedule at schools. We’re still not used to the relaxed lifestyle where there is no urgency to get anything done.

We still love the food here, and I love learning from Isaac how to make some of the dishes. We might be having a cake (keki) celebration for either Thanksgiving or Christmas in the form of a goat keki; we would cook the goat whole with hair on it’s head, face and feet…I can’t wait. One thing I hate is how awkward it is to pull out a camera here. Our big Nikon seems like a curse at times because I just want to use it, but I always chicken out if there are people around. Hope all is well back in the States and we love hearing from you all. Thanks for all the support and love.

Written by Zach


5 November 2009

Today was a good day…the whole week actually was good. Tuesday we went to Mama Africa with the kids at CWCD as a reward for doing a good job at graduation. They loved it so it was fun watching the kids’ reactions rather than watching the show for a second time.

When we got home we talked to Mama about our concerns about the village visits, especially since on Wednesday she had planned for us to go to Longido, which is really far and would have cost us a lot of money for only being there a couple of hours. We feel that our time would better be spent talking to the village men or continue in the schools, so that is what we are going to try to focus on with the presentations. I don’t think Mama really understood what we were talking about with the effectiveness of the presentations with the women, and us feeling like she didn’t really need us to talk to the women, but she just nodded and said “Yes, okay! I think this is good.”

Today we went to a school on the east side of Arusha called Patandi. The presentation was to a group of about 60 students in Classes 5 & 6, and it went really well. They listened intently and asked lots of good questions. I really felt like they learned something and enthusiastic about it. I love the feeling I have after giving a presentation in the schools here. I think I biggest triumph today came at the end of the presentation, though. The teacher had come back to the classroom and we asked her if we could give out some condoms to the kids. She said after thinking for a minute that the children were too young and that if we gave them condoms that they would “practice” with them. Although we have to respect their opinions, we also wanted to mention that the students are doing it whether we give them condoms or not. She turned to the class and asked them if they wanted them, and they all raised their hands and were yelling “yes!” She turned back to us and said, “I guess they actually do need them.” I know it is hard to admit that 12-14 year olds are having sex here, but it is starting even earlier than that and they need to be learning about condoms, HIV/AIDS and protecting themselves as early as possible.

(The picture here is of a “traditional Maasai medicine” stand that is found on the streets of Arusha. On top there are various plants that look like herbs, roots, etc.)

(Also, a note about the spelling of Maasai – it is supposed to be spelled as I have it here, not Masai. They sometimes change it for Westerners, but coming from a real Maasai, it should have two ‘a’s’.)

Written by Whitney

Halloween in Arusha

1 November 2009

This morning we went to church again at the Arusha Community Church and finally met Dave and Eunie Simonson, who were missionary friends of my grandparents back in the 50’s and have stayed in Tanzania most of their lives. It was Dave’s 80^th birthday so we all sang to him. Even though he is struggling with his health, when Eunie said “Bob and Esther Johnson’s granddaughter”, he knew exactly who we were. Eunie seems like one of the most genuinely nice people I have ever met. It is easy to see why the two of them have made such a huge impact on Arusha and Tanzania as a whole. We also met another handful of white people who are all working on various projects around town. Since there are so few white people here, they really stick together and have a close-knit community. It is nice to know that there are other people here who have had similar experiences to support us when we are struggling to adjust to life here.

Yesterday we went to the graduation ceremony at the CWCD. They definitely operated on Africa time…we were there for six hours and vowed to never complain about the length of a graduation in the states again. J The ceremony was very nice, though and had tons of singing and dancing. The speeches were in Swahili so I could only understand bits and pieces, but it is good to keep listening and trying to comprehend. Swahili is coming around slowly but surely and if we keep progressing as we have been, we’ll be pretty close to fluent when we leave.

Yesterday was also Halloween, and even though it didn’t feel much like Halloween here, the mzungus still celebrated. Zach and I dressed up and went to a party with a bunch of the lawyers that work at the ICTR. Zach dressed up as Indiana Jones and I was a black cat, which we thought was pretty good for being in Africa and not having much to work with. The party was pretty fun and the crowd was very interesting. Plus, they had American food there like Doritos and Mac & Cheese, so it was a little taste of home. Even though I haven’t missed the food much thus far, last night was a nice break from the usual rice and beans.

(The picture here is of one of the graduates watching the ceremony. They made their own hats out of paper which were adorable.)

Written by Whitney