Wednesday, July 25th: Adventures from Kilala to Nkoranga

Since Nkoaranga is situated a little ways up the mountain, it is necessary to commute up and down the 4km road to get to the main road. There is a Dala Dala stop called “Kilala” conveniently placed at the bottom on the main road.

There are three ways to get up and down this (thankfully) paved, steep road. Dala dala, cab, or piki piki. The Dala Dala both ways is 500 shillings, but they are annoying because you need to wait a while for the entire van to fill up. It’s cheap but slightly inconvenient. We usually take this up the mountain.

Cabs are the same price, hold less people, but also require waiting time in order to reach its human maximum capacity – which always astounds me. The cabs are 4-door sedans, but I’ve been in cabs with 12 people (4 in the front, 4 in the back, and 4 in the trunk) AND with 8 people and about 30 chickens in the trunk. Remember what I said about chickens? Yep – on market day, there were about 30 chickens in the trunk of our cab.

Our new favorite way is piki piki, which is essentially a small motorcycle. You just hop on the back of a dude’s bike and go. They are 500 shillings on the way down, 1000 on the way up. Piki piki are preferable on the way down because they are cheap, quick, and sometimes the driver won’t need to use gas until ¾ of the way down! Just make sure to tell the driver, “Pole pole, tafadhali,” and they’ll drive slow. One time I was taking piki piki up the mountain (I was in a rush) and about ¾ up, he ran out of gas, told me to get off, and then drove away! So I just kept walking up until another piki piki driver swooped to my rescue. Always an adventure.  

Monday, July 23rd: Lily and Rae Takeover

Nine of our lady colleagues work in hospitals in Arusha, and ALL live together in a (realllly nice) guesthouse! We’re a bit jealous, and since Arusha’s only a 20 minute Dala Dala ride, we visited them this Saturday and spent the night! It was a great way to enjoy the weekend.


When we returned to Nkoaranga, we got our housing situation sorted out, and we’ve moved into the guesthouse with the other volunteers. They are all so awesome, and work at the neighboring orphanage. Becca lives with us, and organizes tons of resources for Nkoaranga Orphanage. She’s started a non-profit (The Small Things) for the children and is in the process of adopting a child!


Things at the hospital are going so well! Today, our teacher Miguel paid us a visit! We had such a productive day, and worked on some more complicated equipment. Unfortunately, we need to buy some parts to complete projects like Bili Lights and a Pulse Oximeter. 


In other news, Raelyn and I are enjoying getting to know the hospital staff, but I’ve noticed that Tanzanians in general have difficulty with our names. L’s and R’s are pronounced nearly the same in Swahili, so “Raelyn” and “Lauren” sound pretty similar. To help them out, I’ve been introducing myself as “Lili,” Swahili for Lily, which was my great grandmother’s name. Raelyn has also made name sacrifices, and calls herself, “Rae.” Which is funny, because that’s my grandmother’s name, and she’s the daughter of great grandma Lily!

Chickens

When we walk to our home on the hill, we run into at least two cows and a few goats. But the chickens… they’re everywhere I go in Tanzania. I just can’t escape them. They keep you up at night, they crap everywhere, and they’ll walk in your path. They just do whatever the hell they want - and I kind of love it! I’ve always joked that I will pick up a chicken. So I finally picked one up. Although… I “chickened” out and only grabbed a baby.

Chickens that DGAF

Saturday, July 21st: Open Door Policy

Welp! I’m here at Nkoaranga Lutheran Hospital! It has been an exhausting two days.

On Thursday, we were literally plopped at our hospital. Like… Bus dropped us off and peaced the hell out of there. Raelyn and I put our Swahili to good use, introduced ourselves to a few hospital staff members, found our accommodations, hunted down the keys to our new “office/workshop,” and bought some food for the week (we are cooking for ourselves this month!). It was pretty overwhelming, no one here tells us what to do or where to go. Also, few people speak English!

As for our accommodations… We are a little confused. EWH is expecting us to live in a the guest house with other volunteers, however it seems the house is currently full and we are living in a much smaller house much higher up the hill with Mama Neema, a matron in the hospital’s General Ward, and her daughter Irene, who works in the Maternity Ward. The house is decent. Our room is very tiny, our kitchen is lacking, and I still don’t understand how to use the toilet, which doesn’t flush. However, it seems that Mama Neema and Irene are sharing a single bed right now to accommodate us, which is the only thing I’m not okay with. They are absolutely welcoming though, and we feel almost bad for wanting to move. We will have it sorted out this weekend.

On Friday, we began work and our routine. The hospital begins with a short service (in Swahili) every day at 8am. We introduced ourselves at the service to the best of our abilities, and got to work! We have to take an inventory first of medical equipment – good thing the hospital is small! The only inventory we were able to obtain was of furniture…. Not too helpful. We were also able to do some quick, easy fixes as we went from ward to ward. We put a suction machine and oxygen concentrator back into working order!

Raelyn and the Oxygen Concentrator!

The Workshop - Open Door Policy in place 

View of Nkoaranga from up the hill where we live

Wednesday, July 18th: Leaving the Nest

The time has come… I’m leaving my homestay and moving to my hospital tomorrow! School is winding down and we had our final Kiswahili exam today (think it went alright!). I hung out with my colleagues a bunch these last few days. Since we’re all being placed in different hospitals, I won’t see most of them until our final conference August 18^th! L

I’m also so sad to be leaving my homestay. Baba gave us these cheesy T-shirts with lots of twiga (giraffes) on them. They also say “Karibu Tanzania!” Needless to say, it’s my new favorite shirt. They also fed us… SO MUCH. Rice, chipati, lentils, stew, parachichi (since they know that avocadoes are my absolute favorite!), and even… ICE CREAM!

I gave them some of their gifts too! I gave Baba two NY mugs and some candy, Christina got Tupperware, new sponges, and a solar powered dancing monkey, Brenda and baby James got a coloring book and one of the robotic mice that my cousins, Sabrina and Samantha, let me take to Africa. Most of my cousins’ donations will go to the orphanage at my hospital. Although… Brenda is OBSESSED with this mouse! I'm so thankful for the time I've spent with my host family.

I’m a little nervous, but really excited about my hospital. It is situated on the side of Mt. Meru, and I’m not sure what my transportation and housing will be like… but I can’t wait to get my hands on some equipment!

Monday, July 16th: You Only Tanga Once

My coordinator gave us Monday off this weekend, so me and nine other colleagues decided to take a trip to a small port town on Tanzania’s East Coast called Tanga. We thought about Zanzibar, but traveling to the island requires a bus ride and ferry or an expensive flight, so we decided to be time and cost efficient. We definitely made a great decision, and the weekend only cost me $115 for everything…

Tanga is an 8-hour bus ride away from Usa River, and it’s definitely not touristy. We felt really safe (safer than we feel in Arusha, which is always bustling with activity and tourists), and had just enough to do for the weekend. Friday afternoon, we piled into a rented out Dala Dala (which played MUSIC) and had a mini party until we reached our hotel, Inn by the Sea, around midnight.

True to its name, our hotel was indeed by a body of water – even though this body of water is the Indian Ocean. The beach was a sight and experience I’ll never forget. To prevent boring  you, I’ll give a quick overview of the weekend.

Saturday was categorized by lots of beaching, finding a random guy with a boat to take us to the nearby abandoned “Toten Island,” Christine shouting, “HAPANA! SIJUI!” (NO! I DON’T KNOW!) for no explicable reason, exploring the town of Tanga, waiting inordinate amounts of time for every meal, crappy bar coupons, a terribly constructed drinking game titled, “Star Cap,” plankton that lights up in the ocean when you walk, and heading off to “Nani Nani Land” (AKA sleep).

Sunday consisted of more beaching, relocating to a cheaper hotel in the town of Tanga with a sweet view of the ocean, PB&J sandwiches for all, more Dala Dala rides, exploring Amboni Caves and Galanos Hot Springs, primordial screams while on canoes, pumzikas, more waiting for food, and a ridiculously fun and strange Tanzanian club called, “La Casa Chica.”

We returned to Arusha on a public bus, which turned out to be a luxury Dala Dala. We stopped pretty much every half hour, but managed to get home in 8 hours. All was well with the world.

View from Toten Island

View from "Inn by the Sea"

Thursday, July 12th: Power Outages

This is just a small post dedicated to Tanzania’s power outages. The power has been on and off this week, and up until now, it has been off for 2 days. The power goes out probably at least once a week, sometimes for a few hours or a day. No one really knows why, and no one really complains. They just get their flashlights and candles out and go on with their lives. Luckily my school has a backup generator, but there is no such thing at home. I’ve become pretty used to it by now, and dinner by candlelight can be fun… Until someone knocks the candle into the stew…

Wednesday, July 11th: The Watoto Foundation

Our Kiswahili teachers take us on field trips weekly to help reinforce the language. We took a trip to an institution nearby called the Watoto Foundation today. This organization finds and recruits boys ages 13-15 from the streets, gives them a new home, educates them with a primary school educations, and gives them specialized skills like carpentry, welding, or agriculture. The foundation also secures the boys a job or secondary school education after their graduation from the program.

When we arrived, we got a quick introduction to the organization and split off into pairs with the boys. Robert approached me, shook my hand, and took me on a tour of the foundation’s compound. I practiced a ton of Swahili, and he got to practice some English! Robert is 16 years old and really wanted to come visit me in America. He also likes 50 cent, and is studying carpentry. We played foosball and he showed me some furniture he’s made for the school! The school is really self-sustaining; the boys have many jobs to help keep the school going. Some are in charge of the rabbits, others are in charge of the chickens, etc. They even use some of the cow feces for bioenergy!

I tried to ask him about why he left his home for the streets, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Some of the boys were orphaned and other had terribly dysfunctional families, so they turned to living on their own in the streets of Arusha. It was a really incredible experience. Check out the foundation at: http://www.watotofoundation.nl/en/

Sunday, July 9th: Canadians and Competitive Clotheslines

Busy, busy weekend! Raelyn and I went running, which is a big deal for me since it’s the first time I’ve been running since I hurt my foot! People in Tanzania think running and exercise is funny, so locals laughed at us, imitated us, and one guy tried running next to us!

We were also extremely domestic this weekend. We cooked a traditional African meal called “pilau,” which is a meat, vegetable, and rice dish. It took probably two hours to prepare the entire meal! We also hand washed our own laundry for the first time. Raelyn and I took our friendship to the next level. She likes to say, “nobody has ever been as intimate with my intimates.”

On Saturday, we visited Baba’s friends nearby. They are former missionaries from Canada (Raelyn was excited) and have been starting up their own Bed and Breakfast, which is turning out to be more like a resort! They were having their first guests that night, so we helped clean windows! They were so welcoming, kind, and had great stories! Check them out at: http://www.dashirlodge.com/

Last night, our class met up at TCDC, watched Dodgeball, had some beers, and had a mini discotech with our very own DJ Ray Ray. Today, our Baba told us he wanted to treat us to a nice lunch, so he took us to a buffet restaurant in Usa River! We even got Ice Cream. Brenda and Rachel, one of Baba’s daughters, also came. T’was a greatttt weekend!

Beginnings of Dashir Lodge!

My new sheets..... Aww yeah!!

Woman in da kitchennnn! Watch out!