Sunday July 10, 2011 – Until We Meet Again

There is no passion to be found playing small, settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
- Nelson Mandela

I can’t believe I’m leaving today and my journey is winding to an end. I’ve had an amazing experience in Tanzania that I will hold with me forever. I’ve learned so much, grown as a person, and made friendships here that will last forever. Coming to Africa has changed my perspective on countless things.  I am so much more aware of the inequalities of this world and just how lucky I am to live in a country that provides me with so many opportunities. I am also aware of how I want to help those that don’t have the things that our country does. Although my impact here was small, the time I spent with the kids at Kidzcare and Boona Baana have not only given me the drive to continue helping Africa but in a way it also gave me an obligation to. Africa is a place of inequality, poverty, violence, and deprivation, yet I was able to fall in love with it. It was an experience I wouldn’t have changed for the world and one that no one can understand fully unless they have been there! Asante sana Africa! Until next time….

Saturday July 9, 2011 – Slumber Party at Boona Baana

We continued making the scrapbooks for the boona baana kids this morning and they are just about done. The other girls will give them to the kids after I leave and they will each have one for themselves to keep. Tonight we slept over at boona baana! The power was out until 11pm and since it gets dark at around 7pm every night without fail, we ended up having to use flashlights and then we played capture the flag outside with glow sticks! Once the power went on we went inside and watched a movie, the kids picked “Never Say Never” the movie about Justin Bieber! K, J, and I were falling asleep near the end of the movie and had to go to bed haha, but the rest of the kids stayed up for a bit! In the morning Mama B made us Chai and bread for breakfast. Saying good-bye sucked, for lack of a better word! I left my email with them, but it’s gonna be hard not seeing them anymore especially because we were with them three days a week every week!

The way to happiness -- keep your heart free from hate, your mind free from worry, live simply, expect little, give much.
-- Carol Borges

That night we went out for dinner for my last night. We walked to this hotel/restaurant called Mediterrano right on the beach! It was really nice there and their seats looked like canoes! It was nice to have one last dinner with my Tanzanian family and also to play peaches and pits for the last time with them (a tradition I’m going to carry on!).

The whole gang!

Friday July 8, 2011 - Daima katika moyo wangu (Always in my heart)

Went to Kidzcare again today, and it was so much fun. I’ve really bonded with them. Having to tell them that I was leaving to go back to Canada was hard and both little E and E gave me the longest hugs in the world. They didn’t want to let go and I didn’t either. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to say bye to these kids until I was driving away and the tears started falling. Still thinking about it now makes my heart hurt, but I’m so thankful that I got to be a part of their lives for these last few months of my life because it opened my eyes in so many ways. These kids have had so much heartache and obstacles in their short lives but you would never guess it by meeting them. Their perseverance, love for life, and glowing personalities will remain in my memory forever.

“In the harshest place on Earth, ... love finds a way.”
-- Morgan Freeman

Thursday July 7, 2011 – Saba Saba…A Tanzanian work holiday

Got the ingredients to make pizza’s with the boona baana kids tonight. Luckily Shoppers and the local duka were open because it is the Saba Saba holiday today so many of the shops and businesses are closed. The holiday celebrates the 1954 founding of the TANU or Tanganyika African National Union, a Tanzanian political party. Saba Saba means “seven seven” in Kswahili and in Dar es Salaam there is an International Trade Fair held every year on this date. Mary told us that they never go it and that we shouldn’t either because we would get mugged! One year she was walking down the street with her daughter near there and she got pushed down on the ground and they wanted money and she was so worried about her daughter, but when she got up her daughter was hitting the man, which made her even more fearful but nothing bad came of it. Also got pictures printed off for the scrapbooks were planning on making for each one of the kids so they have something special with pictures of themselves and some of us in them when we leave. We made pizzas with the kids and they had so much fun. We played peaches and pits with them and just hung out outside for a bit, talked, laughed, told stories, and took pictures.

Wednesday July 6, 2011

The fact is that there is enough food in the world for everyone. But tragically, much of the world's food and land resources are tied up in producing beef and other livestock--food for the well off--while millions of children and adults suffer from malnutrition and starvation.
-- Dr.Walden Bello

Went to KidzCare again today. Got to see the primary school that was just recently painted inside and new desks were put in. It looks really nice now and the teacher is able to use the paintings on the walls to teach because there are animals, body parts, the alphabet, numbers, and different things like that on the walls so less books are needed. We played with the kids and read with them and then A taught Jocelyn and I how to dance! Jenny brought pipe cleaners and the kids loved making flowers, bracelets, eye glasses, rings, necklaces, spiders, snakes and people out of them! Kara, E, E, D, F, and I had some girl time lying on the trampoline, singing and laughing. When we were about to leave E asked me if I could sleep over at their house with them, and I really wish we could have!

We got home around 6:30pm, had dinner and then Brooke and Marco, the owners of Boona Baana came over after dinner for coffee and pie to talk about our future plans with the kids and also about children’s rights in Tanzania because Brooke is a lawyer here and deals with a lot of cases involving children’s rights. It was nice to hear their ideas and know that we are going to be working on projects that they need and will be beneficial to the kids and to their organization. I learned that not until 2010 were there any laws specifically in place for kids and even when there were some in place they weren’t implemented much. Also, the government and social welfare systems don’t care about the children, they are greedy and in it for themselves. As for boona baana, we talked a bit about sponsoring and they stated they would like if the kids were involved with the money they are receiving in the sense that they would learn budgeting and learn some money skills. I thought it was a good idea. Brooke and Marco have had numerous amounts of volunteers throughtout their fourteen years of owning Boona Baana and they said they have had some good volunteers but they have had many bad volunteers also. We asked them what made a bad volunteer and Brooke basically said “there are two kinds of volunteers, those who want to fill a gap, and those who are fulfilled already”. The one’s that are there looking to fill a gap and there to try and get something out of it tend to complain a lot and don’t get as involved with the kids. They have a lot of volunteers that had completely different ideas of what Africa and even boona baana would be like before they got there and when they are there they can’t deal with the reality. Brooke also mentioned this website: http://foreverangels.org/ and it’s honestly worth a look! It’s a home in Tanzania for orphaned children. After they left we all went to a place called Joevic that has karaoke and was about a four minute drive down the road from us.

Monday July 4, 2011 - kuishi, upendo, cheka

Went on a jog this morning. Then went to slipway at 10am to get rest of the things I need for presents and stuff. Jocelyn and I shopped around and found this one store that had a sign for sale that read “Love many, trust few, learn to paddle your own canoe”, I thought it was cute! We went to novel idea again and I got another book because I’m a sucker for books! It’s called “Dead Aid” and it’s all about foreign aid in Africa and why it doesn’t work as well as we are lead to believe it does. We found this book in the book store that had a bunch of African proverbs in it and were flipping through and found this one:

Wise Kiswahili proverb: “If you play in mud you will get splashed” (HAHA…so wise ;))

Jocelyn and I made our own wise proverb of today: “If you eat peanut butter for breakfast you will get full” (We can be wise too ;))

Behind slipway there’s a market where you can buy lots of souvenirs. Jocelyn, Kara, and I found this lady that did henna so we got some done on our hands! It looked really good! It was the black henna kind so it kinda looks like were being taking over by some black creature like in Spider Man 2, but it’s pretty at the same time!

We went to boona baana in the afternoon and painted some pictures outside with the kids. Man am I going to miss them!

Sunday July 3, 2011

http://wamamakahawa.wordpress.com/

Went to this coffee shop today with everyone to do some work. The women who own it, hand roast the coffee themselves and it’s all from Tanzania.

One week left today L Hung out at the house in the morning with K, J, and J. We made lists of what Kara and I have to do in our next week before I leave and K’s parents come (and they all go to Arusha and then Zanzibar). Then we went to boona baana and had a good day there. All the boona baana kids (E, S, I, L, A, M, I) plus Brooke and Marco's kids (E, T, M, A, J) were there and some of the community kids (A, A, E, A), so it was good! We told the kids that K and I would be leaving in a week and I was really sad and E wouldn’t let go of me for the rest of the time after she found out.

Tonight after dinner we had a meeting with Cherie to discuss the article she gave us to read about NGO’s and whether they have positive or negative effects on the developing countries. What I got from the article is that NGO’s can be both positive and negative depending on who is running them and what they choose to put their money towards. Some of the larger NGO’s out there end up allocating their money in ways that benefit the company and employees more than the cause they set out to help. This was so evident in my time in Dar because you’d see the houses of people who work for NGO’s and their fancy rides and just wonder where that money came from. On the other hand though there are NGO’s like Boona Baana who are run by passionate people who’s hearts believe in what they are doing. The owners of boona baana do not live luxurious lives, in fact they own a house just down the street from boona baana and most of their money goes towards boona baana and also their own adopted and biological children. This is how NGO’s should be run, therefore it completely depends on who’s in charge and I realize that larger NGO’s need to keep their business going and support their workers but when an employee is taking in a one million dollar a year salary I think there’s been some wrong turns along the way. I’ve learned it’s important to research an NGO’s background before donating money to them to guarantee your money is going where you believe it’s going. I think that a few larger NGO’s have given NGO’s in general a bad rep, but all in all I think that most NGO’s do their part and have positive impacts on the people and communities they help and without them Tanzania and other countries wouldn’t be where they are now.  

July 1, 2011 - The Definition of Resilience

Happy 144th Birthday Canada!

Went to the owner of KidzCare’s home not far from Mikocheni B. We had coffee and talked about the orphanage. Then her driver took us out to Kerege Farms to visit the kids for a couple hours. There were a few new members to the orphanage! This one little girl I met had lost both her arms when she was two years old to a pig. Her family lived in a village and she was sleeping in a crib-like bed with one arm hanging out when a pig wandered inside their hut and bit her right arm off. When she used her other arm to try and get the pig off her, the pig bit the other one off too and got a bit of her face in the process. Her parents died a few years later and she was sent to a boarding school that was very dirty, overly crowded and didn’t have a proper education plan in place. She would have had no future there. The owner of KidzCare found her with mud caked onto her clothing and took her in and now she will be staying here and going to the local school where she will be able to grow and use her abilities. She is a remarkable kid…by only watching me take a picture and then go back to look at it once, she figured out how to hold the camera, take a picture, review the picture, and get back to the screen to take another picture all on her own! She refused help! She even opened my zippered pocket after I put my camera away to try and get it (she loved taking pictures!). She has no problem fitting in with the other kids, she colors, eats, and plays games all on her own. She even wrote Kara, mine, and her names in the dirt and then later drew a giant heart in the dirt and stood inside it. I asked her if I could come in the heart with her and she said yes and then we just sat in it for a while. She is the definition of resilience and I can see her going far if she stays with KidzCare and continues to have the positive attitude she does! She is only nine, yet inspires me to strive for my best and use the abilities I have. We must be thankful for what we have because you never know when you will lose it. When I got home that afternoon I wasn’t feeling well and went to bed for about 4 or 5 hours with a fever, chills, achy skin, and nausea! Later that night it got really bad so my professor took me to TMJ hospital to get a malaria test, but I luckily didn’t have malaria! I must have the flu or a cold or something L

Of the world’s population, 10% of people have a disability, but in developing countries that number is as high as 80%. With disability comes stigma, discrimination, seclusion, lack of voice and marginalization to name a few. That’s hard enough without having to also deal with poverty, disease, and unemployment. The goal of the United Nations is to achieve equality for persons with disabilities and one way to do that is through mainstreaming disability in development, such as including policies in the Millenium Development Goals directed at persons with disabilities. http://www.un.org/disabilities/

In an article titled “Discussing the relationship between disability, education and employment” it was found that the common belief is that people with disabilities, even when educated, will not use their education or are less likely to enter the workforce. When you look at the statistics from a study done in Nepal, this is not actually the case, with the return on investment in education between 19.4 and 32.2%, which is quite high. They did find that persons with hearing impairments had the least return on investment in education corresponding to the lack of schools catering to those with hearing impairments. For people with disabilities, years of schooling has a positive effect on the probability of employment and factors such as age and type of disability also determine rate of employment. Although it is considerably harder for people with disabilities to enter the labour market, education does help and it was found there was a positive relationship between years of schooling and employment.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/newsletter/2011/july/trends.shtml#tre1

Thursday June 30, 2011 - Why am I here?

Being in Tanzania and working with the Boona Baana and KidzCare kids, I frequently found myself pondering the question of why I was here. Am I really making an impact? Am I here purely for selfish reasons? Am I doing more harm than good? Volunteering in an orphanage is at first glance an amazing experience that should benefit the kids, but when you are actually there and you realize that over the last two months you have bonded with these kids so much and soon you will be just another volunteer that has come and gone, it hits you hard. Maybe I am doing more harm than good by being in their lives for such a short amount of time and then leaving, but I’m trying to think positively about it and think that even just bringing smiles to their faces and doing fun things with them is worth it. I also plan to stay in touch with the kids and work to try and make a long lasting impression, one that won’t end on the last day I visit Boona Baana and the KidzCare home.

Group photo after having fun with pipe cleaners!

We found baby rats under those bricks!

Geographic observations/differences between Arusha and Dar es Salaam:

Arusha is situated inland and its climate is much cooler than in Dar es Salaam. As we were driving there was a noticeable transition from drier, yellow grass and trees to more green and luscious ones, especially higher in the mountains as the climate is not as dry and hot. There was also less garbage, less people, and cleaner air.

Tuesday June 28 and Wednesday June 29, 2011 – Mimi akaanguka katika upendo na Arusha (I have fallen in love with Arusha)

June 28 went to the cultural museum in Arusha today but it turned out to be a souvenir store with a bit of museum stuff to look at, but mostly an art gallery. After that we walked down to some local street markets and I ended up buying some kanga, which is the African fabric that all the women wear. They make skirts, dresses, scarves, hats, you name it out of this stuff. It`s really pretty and colourful. We walked around until it started getting dark then headed back to our hotel. That night six of us piled in a taxi (four sitting in the back with Alex lying across all of us and one in the front, haha) and then went to this local bar called Empire State Bar for their Reggae Jam Night. It ended up being a lot of fun!

Feeding the babies mashed avocado! 

On Wednesday we had a WildTracks coffee plantation tour planned so the company picked us up from our hotel at 9am and then headed up towards Mt. Meru. If you ever go to Tanzania please come to Arusha, it`s gorgeous! When we got to the village of Nkuaranga in Mt.Meru we met our guide for the day and then he took us to a small shop where part of money from this tour went towards buying some kg`s of rice, pasta and fruit for an orphanage we`d be visiting shortly. We walked a short distance up to the orphanage and were warmly welcomed by the Mama. Our guide told us this was an orphanage of about 24 kids. The primary aged kids were out at the school, but we got to sit, play and cuddle with all the babies that were there. When I walked in, there was about six babies lying on the floor on an old mattress and then toddlers playing around the room. There were some volunteers staying there that helped take care of the kids but there was nowhere near enough volunteers for the amount of kids. It was sad to see and the experience left a strange feeling in my stomach. The kids were dirty and smelly, but none the less happy. I picked up one of the small babies and cuddled him or her (we weren`t sure who were boys and who were girls because they were just dressed in plain clothes. The baby was so content and I think really enjoyed the cuddle! Their lunch came out and we fed them some mashed avocado. I`m not sure if it was because they were babies or if it was because I knew that this was a really good orphanage and the thought of what else is out there in the world was…let`s just say more than depressing.

The gorgeous flowers along our hike/walk!

We then visited the primary school just for a bit before we headed up the mountain through a beautiful, lush forested area. There were countless banana trees and nature galore! I was in my element. We went to a coffee farm owned by a local and got to see how the coffee looks when it`s on the bush and then the rigorous process it takes before the coffee even reaches the point to when it can be roasted. Let`s just say I will appreciate every cup of coffee I drink from now on because the work that goes into making it (especially from places like Tanzania and fair trade coffee companies alike). They showed us the different stages they must do with the plant before it`s ready to be planted again and then grown to maturity and ready for the beans to be picked and then sorted and then dried and roasted. We saw three different natural pesticides they use, which (and I may be naïve but I had no idea) are actual plants! I was so impressed with how much they use nature to their benefit and a bit envious. These plants have special compounds in them to ward off bugs and insects, so this coffee and the all the coffee I bought is 100% organic! Also I had a bandaid on my finger that day and immediately the owners son noticed and told me they don`t use bandaids there and he took me to this plant that is used to rub on cuts and then it stops them from bleeding and helps them heal! There`s even a very soft plant they use as toilet paper and one`s they use as a medicine against malaria (its actually a tree and they scrap off the bark). I`m a sucker for nature and can really appreciate it so I was just loving every second of learning all this. Oh and the flowers up on this mountain were breathtakingly gorgeous! I think some of the beauty might have come from the combination of run down poverty stricken houses in the backdrop of luscious green forest and being in this village made me feel like I was in another world (and it was another world compared to Dar!)

Fixing the coffee plant to prepare it for re-plant

For lunch we walked to the owner`s of Wild Tracks house and had a traditional Tanzanian lunch and the coffee from the farm we just visited on their patio. The food was the best I`ve eaten yet and when I mentioned how wonderful the rice and everything else was she explained that the rice came from a lady down the street, the banana`s or ndyzi also from down the street, and everything else also local! After lunch we saw them roast the coffee and the process all the way to the coffee being sealed in airtight bags and put in cloth bags and tied with dried banana leaf string! I even got to package the coffee that I bought! I loved seeing the whole process and knowing that what they do is so amazing. This company also employs locals and gives them fair wages, which is such a great thing in Tanzania because so many people are exploited and taken advantage of when it comes to employment. Today was an amazing day that I will never forget! Asante Sana Arusha!

Bagging my coffee!

Please check out their website at: http://www.wild-tracks.com/coffee_english.html

Monday June 27, 2011

The crater was my favorite! There were so many animals there and I was really glad we did it last because it was like a finale!! We saw a hippo out of water and we even saw lions up close and personal....there was one so close to our jeep that if I bent over I could have petted her! Today I learned that ostrichs can run up to 70kms/hr! It was an all around amazing day today and not much went wrong with the vehicle to boot! Today was our last day on safari, it was the best four days EVER and I wish I could keep going for another four days. In summary I think we had: three flat tires, one broken clutch, three times that the jeep overheated, stuck in the mud twice (once where we had to push), one roof that wouldn’t close so we got soaked, and three nights four days of pure African safari bliss! Maisha ni nzuri....a.k.a....life is good!

Sunday June 26, 2011 – Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater

We are Masai!

Nzuri Sana!

Woke up bright and early, had tea and then headed out for a morning game drive. We ended up seeing three leopards, a bunch of elephants, zebras, wart hogs, impala, antelope, male lions and female lions, giraffes, ostrich, hippos, monkeys, and a bunch of neat looking birds! It was raining for a bit and our jeep got stuck in some mud and we couldn’t get out so we all had to get out and push! Our feet got really muddy and we were all soaking wet and so dirty, but it was a blast! Went back to camp around noonish to pick up our stuff and have lunch and then we picked up our fixed popped tire and headed towards the crater. Our guides tied our luggage and tents to the top of the jeep and part of it was in the way of our roof top shutting properly so when it started to rain again we all got absolutely soaking wet inside the jeep and water was literally pouring in! Water was even getting in through our windows on the side of the jeep and they were shut, but the seals on them were old and didn’t work properly. Shortly after our vehicle decides to overheat! We were broken down for over half an hour until another vehicle stopped to see if we were ok. One of the girls from inside the vehicle was from Abbotsford, BC, of all places (small world!). We were shortly on the road again, but just when we thought that we had dealt with all the bad luck coming our way, we got another popped tire! A different group stopped to help us and then their radiator over heated, lol, so our guides helped them! Luckily everyone is so nice! Unfortunatley from all the breakdowns we wouldn’t make it to our camp by dark. We quickly stopped at a Masai village before getting to camp because there was one on the way that lets people tour their village for a small price. We didn’t get to stay long because it was getting dark but I’m glad we went because it was really neat to experience! They took us inside their huts, which by the way the women make out of acacia trees and cow dung! Their huts consist of an entrance room with a small fire in the center, a room just big enough to fit one cow, a room for the kids to sleep and a room for the parents or grandparents to sleep. The fires burn just enough to keep the huts nice and warm and they had tiny little windows that let enough light in without letting the warmth escape or the wind and rain to get in. Masai are nomadic to they travel around the country and make new villages as they go. Then they took us to see their primary school where they teach their children right there in the village and then they tried to sell us necklaces, bracelets and jewellery for ridiculously high prices! We got to camp and it was pitch dark out so we quickly set up tent and had dinner. It was freezing cold because we were camping at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater. I didn’t sleep well because the ground was so hard and my feet refused to get warm, but I didn’t mind because I WAS ON A SAFARI IN AFRICA!!!!!

I slept in the one on the right!

Inside the house of a Masai warrior!

Masai children coming back from school (in the back)

Saturday June 25, 2011 – Serengeti a.k.a the place where you can’t see the end!

On the way to Serengeti we stopped to get some red bananas from a local because red bananas are famous in Arusha. We pulled over to the side of the road and 5 ladies ran over to the car, all selling a different type of banana! The red bananas were good but they kind of made my tongue numb, haha! We also saw a lion in a tree on the way to our game drive, which is actually pretty rare so we were lucky to see it. Then we drove through a little town and stopped at a drop hole bathroom where we had to pay 200 tsh to use it and it was flooding and I got hopefully what was water all over my feet! Jenny let me use one of her wet wipes so I was ok…this is one thing I won’t forget to pack when I come back to Africa! We later saw zebras, elephants, donkeys, baboons, buffalo, impala, and ostriches. We also had our second flat tire in Serengeti, haha. Normally on a safari you have two guides, one as the cook and one as the driver, but we had three because one guy was training to become a guide so that was good for helping fix tires and all the other bad luck we had coming our way!! Our guides names were Richard (trainee), Said (cook), and Hassan (driver). Jenny couldn’t say Hassan’s name right if her life depended on it, haha! Soon after we changed the tire it started to pour and we got drenched because our roof wouldn’t shut properly because some of our luggage was in the way and we couldn’t fix it because it was on top of the roof tied up really good! It makes for an unforgettable adventure though! That night we set up camp and had a delicious supper. It was kind of cold that night but nothing compared to what it would be tomorrow night at the Crater!

A curious buffalo

Elephant bum!

Hyenas are shockingly cute! Who would of thought!

Friday June 24, 2011 – Safari Time!

We got a complimentary breakfast at our hotel which was chapatti, mandaazi, watermelon and the tea I’m obsessed with, African pride tea! We got picked up at 8:30am for our safari and stopped on the way to buy some Masai blankets to use as a blanket at night in the tents. It took about three hours to get to Lake Manyara because on the way our tire popped so the guides had to replace it. Shortly after we got to Lake Manyara our jeep broke down. It was the clutch and it took close to 2 ½ to 3 hours to fix. Luckily we were stopped in an area where there was a ton of baboons and they came up really close to us and we got some good pictures. We had lunch while we were waiting, but they forgot I said I was vegetarian so all I could eat was a chapatti and a deep fried muffin! Jenny and I were eating our lunch on the roof of the jeep and we thought we were going to get attacked by a baboon because this one came running up really fast to the car because it smelt the food! Another vehicle came to get us and take us to the hippo pool while the jeep finished being fixed. When the jeep came back we went for a game drive and we ended up seeing wildebeest, giraffe, zebras, vervet monkeys, elephants, dik diks, and waterbucks. It was so dusty driving in Lake Manyara so we were all very dirty by the end. We went back to have dinner and to our surprise we got to sleep in a lodge on the first night. We thought we’d be camping for all three nights but we stay in a lodge the first night and then camp the other two nights. Our cook Said was amazing, he made us homemade cucumber soup, popcorn appy, hot chocolate, tea, mixed veggies, fried potatoes, fish, and mango and oranges. To our surprise the showers at the lodge were also hot, which was nice since we wouldn’t be showering for the next two days!

Thursday June 23, 2011 - Off to Arusha

Woke up at 4:45am to catch the bus to Arusha. We thought it was supposed to be a 9 hour bus ride but it ended up being closer to 12 hours. It was a gorgeous scenic ride so that helped with the length! We stopped for a pit stop about 3 or 4 hours in, but it was just on the side of the road with no bathroom and a giant bus load of on-lookers so none of us went. Luckily we stopped for lunch a couple hours later and there were drop hole bathrooms. There was a concession that consisted of purely chicken and chips, so I got the only thing I could which was chappati and mandaazi, which are both deep fried goodness. On the way to Arusha we passed by a town called Moshi and it is apparently the cleanest town in Tanzania. We got to Arusha and went to our hotel, the Caanan hotel, to drop off our bags and then went to the safari office to pay for the rest of our safari. The climate in Arusha is way cooler than it is in Dar and I was actually a bit cold. It is also way less populated. Had a late dinner at our hotel which had a restaurant with a menu that had about 25 different dishes on it but they only had the supplies to make about 3 of them. So everything we asked for they said they didn’t have, haha, so being a vegetarian the only thing they had that I could eat was a green salad. About forty five minutes to an hour later they bring out our food and my green salad was a mixture of mango, banana, and avocado, haha! It was good though and it was only 2,000 tsh! We were happy with our rooms, they were only about $10 a night and the showers were hot, it was clean, and there was electricity at night time to charge our cameras, oh and the toilets that flushed! Although, the double beds were just slightly bigger than a twin bed so Moriah and I had to cuddle, haha!

Wednesday June 22, 2011

Woke up bright and early to do some laundry by hand before our week trip to Arusha tomorrow. Today the power went out shortly after 8am so a few of us went to sea-cliff to use their internet but when we got there the internet wasn’t working there either! So I went to the book store ‘novel idea’ and ended up buying a book called “The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West and the Fight Against AIDS” and read it while having coffee. So far it’s really interesting. Then I went to boona baana today because I won’t be able to go tomorrow when I’m supposed to be going because we leave for Arusha in the early morning tomorrow. We brought a cake over for the kids to decorate and they thought that was pretty cool!

The last couple days

The African Baobab tree!

"Butter"

Kara and I pretending to be Masai's, lol!

Monday June 20, 2011 – Only 20 days left L

Today I went to Shoppers to get groceries to make dinner for tonight. At boona baana I helped E with her homework and then we did some colouring together. B's baby was there today so I got to play with him a bit. The kids are so good with babies, A is a natural when it comes to nurturing and being motherly to them and Am had her baby sister over the other day and is so responsible and grown up for her age when it comes to looking after her. Am is probably about 7 or 8 (Chai's age) but has the responsibility of looking after her 6 month old baby sister. The mom was at her home and Am was at boona baana with her sister and no adult supervision. This is a normal custom in Africa, but in Canada we are so concerned when younger children even hold babies, we have to be right by their side and are paranoid they will drop them or something. Here, young children are given the huge responsibility of completely taking care of the younger siblings. She was great with her so clearly children are more responsible with some things than we give them credit for, just different situations and cultures create certain maturities. Made appy’s for dinner tonight, bruschetta, seven layer dip, veggies and dip, egg rolls, crackers and cheese, and mini sandwiches….it was really good, then we all watched tangled and ate cinnamon buns that jenn and sienna made.

Tuesday June 21, 2011 – Kariakoo

Today we went to Kariakoo market, it’s a local market that the locals go to. It was so packed and chaotic there, people everywhere, stores everywhere, cars weaving in and out of the small streets and people bugging you to buy their stuff. I found some cool African woven bowls there but other than that there wasn’t much for us to buy; mostly just fruit, vegetables, clothes, some jewellery, and fabric. It was really neat to experience it though. At times I felt a bit worried that we might get something stolen from us, but wasn’t too worried because we were in a big group and we all just kept our purses in front of us. It is very common for people to get pick pocketed there though. 

In the middle of the market there was this big pile of garbage just sitting there, I guess they just used it as sort of like a dump. They don’t really have garbage dumps here or a good disposal system. I was shocked to learn that garbage is burned or thrown in the drain! Drains on the side of the road are filled with garbage. Also there is no recycling of water bottles and they do reuse glass pop and beer cans but other than that there’s no recycling.  

Sunday June 19, 2011 – Father’s Day

What Is A Dad?

A dad is someone who
wants to catch you before you fall
but instead picks you up,
brushes you off,
and lets you try again.

A dad is someone who
wants to keep you from making mistakes
but instead lets you find your own way,
even though his heart breaks in silence
when you get hurt.

A dad is someone who
holds you when you cry,
scolds you when you break the rules,
shines with pride when you succeed,
and has faith in you even when you fail...

- Unknown

I think this is the first father’s day I’ve ever missed and I’m really sad I can’t be home to spend it with my Dad and family! I hope you have a great day and know that I am thinking of you! I love you Dad!!!

Even though it sucks not to be home, I was surrounded today by the love of fatherless children and I felt blessed!

River Rafting last summer down the Thompson!

While talking to L, the oldest kid, at boona baana today about Tanzanian politics and government corruption, we asked him if he felt that he was luckier than lots of the other kids in Tanzania because he was funded to go to international school and most kids have to go to private school. He responded “I’m not lucky…..I’m blessed”. And he is so right, he’s definitely blessed. He is such a smart kid and he knows exactly what’s going on in Tanzania and why things are the way they are, I learned a lot from him today. He told us a story about one of his friends and how you have to have certain grades and do well on an exam in order to be accepted by an international school. L ended up getting accepted and goes to international school because he is funded by a family in Australia and he’s smart so he passed the entrance exam, but his friend took the same exam and failed. The catch is that his friend took the exam a second time and paid the people who mark the exams money, and then he ended up with a B and was accepted into the school. He said international private schools are the best schools to go to but there is corruption everywhere even in those schools, from the teachers to the syllabus to the government. We also talked a bit about when Tanzania got independence in 1961 and how they are now a democracy but not a true democracy because of the corruption. He said something about how the one party, CCM, is in power and doesn’t do much good for Tanzania. It was interesting because he said that Rwanda’s government is actually really good and he wishes Tanzania could be more like Rwanda.

Below is a picture of a primary school that has just been recently painted inside. The idea is that because there aren’t any books or supplies or anything, that the paintings are a sustainable and affordable way to provide the kids with the letters of the alphabet, etc, but most schools don't even have this. It is a two room school that holds about 40 kids and two teachers, there’s nothing in the rooms except for a mat, one desk, and a chalk board.

The lady that owns this place said that another major problem is that when it rains the rooms sometimes get filled up with water because their are no glass on the windows so if the rain is blowing in a certain direction the floors get really wet. This is the same for the orphanage that is on this property as well, there just isn't enough funding to fix everything.

Saturday June 18, 2011 – Trip to City Centre

Found out a couple days ago that one of the interns on the trip has malaria, so he is very sick and none of us has seen him for about two days now. During dinner mid sub sandwich he got up and said he would be right back and had to go to the bathroom, he never returned and then his wife took him to the hospital and they tested him for malaria. We’re all very cautious not to miss a malaria pill now! A bunch of us went to city centre today because I hadn’t been there yet and wanted to check it out. We bought our bus tickets for Arusha and then went to the National Museum, a delicious thai restaurant for lunch, and then to the Kilimanjaro Hotel for a cappuccino! At the thai restaurant we got a dish of choice (I got veggie pad thai) and a drink for 8,000 tsh which is $5.33! And we were all overly stuffed afterwards, so it was a pretty good deal! We’re gonna go back to city center on Tuesday to see the fish market and check out Kariakoo market because we ran out of time today! Kariakoo market is a local market not tailored to tourists so it will neat to experience it and they also have an underground market that were gonna go to as well. The National Museum today was kinda cool to see, I wouldn’t go back but it was worth a visit. They had lots of stuff on the slave trade and history of Africa from colonialism to present, as well as information and fossils of some of the early hominids. I took an anthropology class a couple semesters ago, so it was nice to be able to recognize the different types of hominids and the names of them. It would be so cool to be able to go see Olduvai Gorge where a lot of the fossils were found because it is near the Arusha area in the Great Rift Valley.  

Pretending to be dinosaurs!

Another thing I’ve noticed in Dar is that there is no fast food places anywhere! I know Africa’s a developing country but I kinda just expected to see at least a McDonalds or something, but there’s not! Which is more than okay with me, but it’s just weird not seeing fast food on every corner!

Friday June 17, 2011

This morning I decided to learn the days of the week in Swahili! So to say “today is Friday 17 June, 2011” you’d say “Leo ni Ijumaa tarehe kumi na saba, mwezi wa sita, mwaka elfu mbili kumi na moja” which actually reads “today is Friday date seventeen, month june, two thousand and eleven”. Quite a lot of work to say the date, haha!

There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and others are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
-- Justice Warren Burger

At one of our Swahili lessons our teacher mapped out the contrasts between African and Canadian culture. Although I’ve been experiencing and noticing the differences personally every day, it was helpful to see them down on paper. Some of the main differences we discussed were direct versus indirect speech, time, status, guilt/shame, religion, certainty/uncertainty, and individual/collective. With direct versus indirect speech, Canadians are very to the point and often get annoyed or just altogether leave out unnecessary speech in order to get their point across and get the ‘job’ done, so to speak. Whereas Tanzanians are more likely to just talk to each other more randomly even if it goes off topic and this is accepted and enjoyed. Time is another factor that is looked at through a very different lens! In Tanzania time is plenty and in Canada time is money! Canadians constantly feel rushed and have the mentality that they need to get as much as they can done in as quick as possible…no time to waste! We could learn a lot from Tanzanian’s in this regard because they are much more laid back about their understanding of time. They never seemed rushed and being late is not considered rude or uncommon. It seems like people spend a lot of time waiting around and ‘wasting’ time, but it’s that they are less stressed about it and don’t considered it being ‘wasted’ when they spend those extra minutes talking to a friend or the like. Status is something that you must work for in Canada, for the most part, but in Tanzania status is ascribed, therefore you acquire it from things like old age. When you do something that you know you shouldn’t, like stealing, you tend to feel guilt regardless of whether you’ve been caught or not, so for example, in Canada if you stole something and got away with it most people would still feel guilty, but in Tanzania most people would not feel guilty they would feel shame and only if they were caught. I found this difference really interesting because it depends on whether someone else has caught them do they feel shame, therefore if they get away with something it doesn’t affect them as much and they don’t worry about it. Another difference is our feeling of certainty in Canada, we tend to take risks and not worry or fear about trying new things. In Tanzania, they are more uncertain in this regard and often won’t take risks or try new things, such as changing jobs. And a pretty obvious difference is our individualistic culture and their collectivist culture. We are raised to think for ourselves and do things for ourselves rather than for others. We don’t work as a team and we constantly strive for individual gains even at the expense of others. In Tanzania, they think about others and will often forego individual gain if the gain for the larger collective group is greater. Through my experiences here, I’ve noticed this in the children when we play games, they are noticeably less competitive then the children back home. They aren’t as worried about winning a game and will help each other rather than trying to be the winner or doing better than their peers. In addition, a major difference is that I’ve rarely ever seen them fight! They tend to just share better, for example, if someone has a book or toy that another child wants and that child comes over and takes that toy, the kid who had it in the first place will let the other kid have it and they will go get another, no big deal! This blew my mind because I always expect a fight to break out but it never does!

These are only some of the differences between our cultures, and these are minor differences, but in regards to the quote above it’s so important not to have the perspective that your way is the right way or you won’t enjoy your time in a different country. You have to be open to different ways of life and just enjoy the differences, without thinking it’s not as good as the way you do it at home, etc. Neither way is superior, their only different! And often when you are open minded you’ll realize new ways of doing things that are better! Sometimes there are differences that you may not agree with, but you have to be considerate of the culture and their practices without putting them down or lecturing locals about it because it’s something they believe in.

Usiku mwema, lala fofofo! (Goodnight, sleep like a log!)

Thursday June 16, 2011 - Morning after the Stanley Cup Playoff

Caught up on my journals today and then went to the Green Door Home! Today was a good day because all the kids from the green door came out to play games with us. Normally it’s the same one’s all the time that come play and hang out with us and a couple of the older boys tend to stay inside and do their own thing because they are at that age. Also the girls sometimes don’t play games with us and just watch, but today everyone was playing, so it was really good! Also, all the kids helped us come up with a Swahili word that goes with each letter of the alphabet. We decided to make a little alphabet book for them because the one they have is so Westernized that “A” is for “apple” and “B” is for “balloon” for example. A couple of the younger kids have trouble reading still and we figured it would be easier for them to remember letters and their pronunciation if the letter corresponded to a word they knew rather than having to learn both a letter and an English word they don’t use on a regular basis. So now were just going to put a book together with the Swahili words, letter, and picture of the word. We are kinda wishful thinkers but it would be super cool if we could later actually publish a nicer version of this book and sell it with the proceeds going back to the boona baana kids.

"We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that the child is already someone today" -- Stacia Tauscher

The above quote speaks loudly because throughout history and continuing today, children are often forgotten, or if not forgotten, exploited and used rather than accepted as one and as a human being. Children need rights and they deserve rights just as much as anyone else. Education is so important and can give these kids the opportunities they need and a better chance for their future. The only downfall is that the education system in Africa is taught in English and therefore without the proper foundation of the English language, regardless of intelligence, type of school, or even a wealthy family, the child will not succeed in this type of system. The kids at boona baana are so intelligent but they need a better grasp of the English language in order to succeed in school. One of the older boys was telling me that in many schools they teach in Swahili in the primary grades and don’t teach any English and then when they go into the middle schools and high schools they are thrown into English dominated classes and expected to know what they are doing…clearly this is an inefficient and unsuccessful way to operate. I can’t say it is like this at all the schools, but I know its common enough. Children need to be given the tools they need to succeed and when they are given these, they will not only succeed, but prosper and I think this is true of many children.

As everyone knows the Canucks lost last night L We all stayed up to watch it and I barely slept at all! It was shameful to hear what happened after the game with the riots, ruins the whole experience and excitement of the Stanley Cup L It’s a shame that a few had to ruin it for everyone. Best analysis from last night I've read yet: "In a way, we could thank the testosterone-laden morons for reminding a hockey crazed city that the real heroes in society don't play a game for money; the real heroes fight fires, drive ambulances, treat the sick, and clean-up garbage.” On the bright side there was a lunar eclipse last night so it was neat that we were already awake so we could see it because it looked pretty cool and the sky was crystal clear!!

Tuesday June 14, 2011 – KidzCare kids come to Mikocheni B!

Hanging out in the girls' room at boona baana!

This morning Kara and I went to Boona Baana for a couple hours because three of the younger kids were home from school today. The older kids have mock exams all this week so the rest of the school just has the week off. We painted toe nails, played trouble, and watched a bit of tv that they were very adamant on watching. Then at 2pm the kids from KidzCare came over to our place to play, have dinner, and watch a movie on our projector! They were so cute, all of them dressed up to come over and they looked adorable. We drew and played games and then had spaghetti for dinner! They had a blast and so did all of us!

Kids from KidzCare playing games on our roof!

We watched the Lion King with KidzCare on our projector because they had never seen it!

Monday June 13, 2011

This morning I worked on homework, got my map of East Africa done! Made iced coffee’s again and this time added chocolate syrup in them!  Then at 2pm we went to boona baana. Lately we’ve been having some trouble with figuring out what were allowed to do and what were not allowed to do here because of the responsibility that UFV has over us here. We are trying to plan a trip to Arusha, a safari and some people want to go to Kenya but it’s been hard figuring it out and arranging a way to do it so that the University will be okay with it. Even little things like riding the tuk tuk’s (pronounced took took) are off limits. It’s understandable because we are on an internship and they are responsible for us, but it makes it a lot harder to do things!

I took a picture of the tuk tuk’s the other day, so I’ll explain what they are. They are named after the sound that their small two cycle engines and originated in Japan. They are a super cheap, three wheeled, convenient and fast form transportation. They are sort of dangerous because they are so small and the sides of them are open, but they are able to usually bypass the heavy traffic by going up the side of the roads. They are everywhere and a lot of the locals take them.

There are also Dala Dala’s, another form of transportation here that we aren’t allowed to use! They are very cheap and they are called that because the Swahili pronounciation of the English word “dollar”. When they first were invented it cost five shillings (which is practically free, haha!) and these were the size of a silver dollar. A Dala-dala is more like a pickup truck or van and has benches inside around the edges and a roof on top. There is no tailgate on them, but instead steps are there so that people can board them easier. The idea is for people to sit on the benches but we usually see them so crowded there are people pushed up against the windows and standing in the middle.