Finishing well 05/11/2012
 Esther and I with my birthday cake On may 1st I celebrated my 27th birthday Tanzanian style... which is to say very low key. I went fabric shopping, got passion fruit juice at a cafe downtown, and bought a pretty little cake to share with my host family. It was a good day all around. Below: Passion fruit juice and a good book Fabric shopping!    Mariam K. with a gift from the Climenhagas Friday was my last day with the kids. I'm so sad to leave them, they have made such an impact on my life. But I know that Mariam M., the social worker will take good care of them. Before I left, I got to give some of the kids gifts that their sponsors had sent them. Below: Magreth with her colour-changing T shirt from my Aunt Marie Mariam A. with her gift from the Halls (my parents)    Back at home, I spend more time hanging out with my host family, and the other kids in the compound. Left: Esther tried to put clothes on Deriki who was happily running around naked after his bath Below: All the girls in the compound gather for an impromptu hymn sing while snapping beans Baby Jonson and I. He's the little baby who was born in my first month in Dodoma. Now he loves to be tickled and to laugh.   After bidding Dodoma goodbye, I made my way to Morogoro to visit Nate and Erica one last time, and then to Dar where I spent a couple days with a dear friend, Kara. Below: Walking along the rocky beach in Dar Enjoying my last Tanzanian sunset on the coast of Dar   Early Wednesday morning I flew out of Dar and arrived in Newark that night (7 hours time difference). I got back to State College on Thursday (yesterday), and have been enjoying being with my family. Spending 4 months in Tanzania has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Difficult at turns but in the end, rewarding. My next plans are to adopt a dog, move to Houston, and find a job as an elementary school nurse. Spending 4 months with the kids in the program made me realize that what I really want to do is be a school nurse. Thanks for following me all these months. It really helped on difficult days to know there were people back home who loved me and cared about how I was doing. Though there will be no more blog posts, you can always follow me of facebook... or who knows, maybe I'll start a blog of the adventures of a reluctant Texan.... we'll see. :) 1 Comment Soroti and Beyond 04/26/2012
 Esther with Green Mangoes The last couple of weeks have been spent with my good friend Esther Harder. Esther spent 4 years in Soroti, Uganda with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) and is now teaching at an all girls boarding school in Gashora, Rwanda. Esther was on break from school so she picked me up in Entebee and we went up to Soroti together to visit her friends, learn about Iteso culture and eat mangos! Esther knows so many people in town, and all of them wanted to visit with us and feed us copious amounts of food. A great sign outside a church in Soroti Esther with her host family from her MCC days Dinner with Esther, Richard (Esther's old co-worker, and his daughter Beldin) Riding a bicycle boda (taxi) for the first time and doing it life a proper lady :)      MCC Kampala We then spend a couple days in Kampala spending time with more friends and indulging in my first pedicure! We also visited the Kampala MCC office. I took a total of one picture in Kampala, and it was of a sign.  Esther, Cassie, Annie and Mireille After taking a bus to Rwanda, we spend a couple days in Kigali visiting with friends; Cassie, who works for Cards from Africa, Annie, who is a MCC SALTer, and Mireille, who teaches at a local school. We had a fun day of going out for donuts, craft shopping, American TV show watching, long talks, and homemade biscuits and gravy! I felt like I was home! The new term for Gashora Girls Academy started up on Monday so we headed out to the school. Esther teaches English language and literature to Senior 5 (grade 11) girls. I got to sit in on her classes and was very impressed with the number of girls engrossed in novels between classes! I haven’t seen East Africans read novels, so I’m excited to see these girls really getting into it. The head master, finding out I was a nurse, and in public health, asked me to teach the Senior 5 classes of sex ed! I was super excited! I used curriculum I helped to write for a project last year and adapted it for the girls here. I taught 3 classes and they all went very well. I was so excited to be able to educate these girls and answer their questions. What fun! The students at Gashora Girls Academy Me teaching sex ed   We will head back to Kigali tomorrow to visit the genocide memorial museum, and then I’ll fly back to Dar then bus back to Dodoma. I will have 9 days left in Dodoma so the time will be filled with goodbyes. But I will also be graced with the visit of my 2 good friends Erica and Nate, so there will be plenty of laughs also. Think of me in the weeks to come as I say good bye and try to finish well. Traveling around Tanzania 04/11/2012
I have spent the time since my last post traveling around Tanzania and spending time with friends and family! How wonderful!  Me on a mountain overlooking Morogoro First stop: Morogoro & Mzumbe. I visited Nate and Erica who are living in Mzumbe, just outside of Morogoro. Erica is teaching at a boy’s secondary school and Nate is volunteering with Oxfam in town. Erica’s parents are also living in Morogoro so I got to spend some time relaxing in their lovely home and in their backyard chasing monkeys. I also got the opportunity to get thoroughly creamed at Settlers of Catan…. Remind me again why I missed it so much? Here is Nate on a mountain overlooking Morogoro, A Vervent monkey watching the weirdo with the camera, Erica at her school, and a sign at the school, ironically placed directly below a sign in Swahili.     After meeting my cousin Rebekah in Dar Es Salaam, we took the ferry to Zanzibar where Caroline met us. We went on a spice tour, snorkeling, and just explored Stone Town. Thanks to Bekah’s water proof camera we have some fantastic underwater pictures… but not on my computer yet. Here is the coast of Stone Town, The door to the house that may or may not have been Freddie Mercury's, a traditional Zanzibari boat, Bek and Caroline on the boat back from Snorkeling      We all went on safari! Next stop Mikumi national park where with the help of a really awesome guide we saw all sorts of animals, lions, elephants, giraffes, zebra, leopard, buffalo, big lizards, impala, warthogs, and those vultures from the jungle book movie (“What do you want to do?” I don’t know, what do you want to do?”). Sidenote: I realize this is the wrong side of the Zebra, but I can't help what side they turn towards the road. second to last pic: Prints on Safari (This is for you Bang house) last pic: yup, I'm singing the lion king.          After Mikumi, we drove to Udzugwa rainforest where we were able to hike to a waterfall and swim in it! Again, great pictures on Bekah’s camera. We also played jump rope with a bunch of neighborhood kids and women for an hour or so, and demonstrated our mad skills… or not. We then flew from Mikumi to Dodoma in a little plane. It was awesome to take off surrounded by wildlife. Sanje falls in Udzugwa, and curious giraffes watch the big metal bird take flight.   Back in Dodoma, Bekah taught the kids about how to write a letter and much to their delight, distributed cards made by her students in Michigan! I also got to give a couple of the kids gifts their sponsors sent with Caroline. I wish their sponsors could have been here to see the joy on their faces, but I took pictures and I promise to send them to you, sponsors! We also found ourselves at the first birthday party of my host ‘cousin’, Molin, Where as tradition states, you must feed each other cake. We substituted a banana for Caroline, but Molin wasn’t having any of it. Bekah teaching the class, Jasmini with her new jump rope from her sponsors, Washing clothes, Caroline trying to feed Molin a banana.     I'm off to Uganda tomorrow!! Hopefully more updates from there! Crayons are the Best! 03/20/2012
 One of the most fun things this past week was the impromptu art session. In the late afternoon several of the kids who were hanging around the church followed me back to the office. I found some scrap paper and a box of crayons and we all plopped down on the floor to colour. The kids were amazing! They were so content. They didn’t need any guidance or suggestions, they just took off drawing and colouring everything they could think of. Trees, houses, fish, skirts, people, cars, flowers etc etc etc. Despite never having used crayons before they took to it like fish to water, and their attention spans! Wow! They coloured in silence for a good 45 minutes! I finally had to tell them to quit because we all needed to walk home before it got dark. I love kids and I love crayons. Every kid should have a box of crayons. To the left is Maria and below is (L to R) Maria K, Maria P, Frankie and Amida.   The past 2 Fridays we’ve been doing health screenings for all the kids. Above is a picture of me handing out deworming meds to a clearly thrilled child.  In a past post, I mentioned Sophia who is unable to move her legs and has been in the hospital for 1 ½ years. Great news! We also recruited a doctor to advocate for her discharge and with an extra donation from her sponsor, we were able to rent a room for her and her sister to live in. We picked her up last Wednesday and moved her and her sister into their new home. She will start at the nearby school soon. Here is Sophia in her new home!  We’ve gotten more sponsors in the last while. Here is Ratifa, holding a picture of her new sponsors; Katie, Jeremy and Rebekah Reich (Katie is my awesome cousin).  Here is my latest baby hat. I made it for Molin my host mom's niece. She's the little girl I had on my back in an earlier photo. Here she is with her mom, sporting her new hat. I've just really been enjoying spending time with the kids here. They are what make it all worth while. Here is Asha, Jasmini and Donata singing during the program last week, and here are 2 boys (don't sure of their names) showing off for the camera.   The next couple weeks I'm heading to Morogoro to visit some dear friends Nate and Erica, then heading to Dar to collect Caroline and Rebekah. The 3 of us will then begin the amazing Hall girl adventure (amazing applies both to the adventure and the girls) to Zanzibar, on a safari, into the rainforest and back to Doodma. I will be without computer during this time so I'll be out of contact. Rest assured I'm having fun, and I'll update you as soon as I'm back. General Life Announcement 03/08/2012
 Quiz: What do George Foreman, Hilary Duff, Beyonce Knowles, Dan Rather and I all have in common? We've all lived in Houston, Texas. What the What? Yep, that's right. Come August, I will be a Texan. I would rank moving to Texas on the top ten list of things I never imagined myself doing. But there it is! Vaughn accepted an offer for a tenure track professor position at University of Houston. This is really exciting! He's dreamed of having a job like this since he started out in math. Also, my career opportunities as a public health nurse are significantly greater in Houston as opposed to Toronto (where I'm not actually a registered nurse). So it's a good move for both of us. Also, the average high in January is 62! (lets not talk about the high in July), you can grow pineapples there and its close to the coast, so that's a triple win! So, come August, expect to see me driving around Houston with a 'don't mess with Texas' sticker in my window. (yes, I plan on buying one) For all those interested, here is what I plan to spend my days doing while I'm residing in Texas.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04FsPD7_c4 A week in pictures (and comments) 03/05/2012
The week has been long. I'm exhausted. Rather than a full blog post, pictures with comments will have to suffice this week.  In my very limited downtime, I've been experimenting with knitting with some bicycle spokes. It's been going well. I've finished my first project, a hat for baby Jonson (Mama Esthers baby who I wrote about a month or so ago). People are already lining up for next ones. I'm currently working on a yellow and pink on for Molin, my host niece (the baby I had on my back in one of my pictures). Here is Mama Esther holding baby Jonson in his new hat. On Monday we visited Village of Hope, and orphanage for HIV positive kids. We delivered MCC infant kits to the nursery there. Here is Miriam and I with 2 cute kids, and Tiffanee with a little one holding her infant kit.   On Friday I taught the kids about HIV stigma. We had a puppet show to help talk about it. We also say 'I've got peace like a river'. Here is the puppet show and some boys trying to help me teach the kids 'I've got peace like a river' (although apparently they thought it was joy like a river).   More Plumpy Nut! Here's little Maria who is a HIV+ 10 year old girl in our LaHash program. Her growth is stunted from malnutrition and HIV. Here we are measuring her arm circumference (she's in the red) and here with her stash of a week of Plumpy Nut (although it may not last that long - she had already eaten 2 before she left!)   New Sponsors! I have had several friends and family offer to sponsor a LaHash kid. Here is Obidiah with his new sponsors, Ruth & Eric Parish Sauder, and Miriam with her new sponsors, The Hall family (yes, my parents and siblings). More kids and sponsor pics to come!   On Sunday I climbed Lion Rock with Al and a few visitors from Toledo. I felt so alive scrambling up the rocks. It reminded me of all the ridiculous places we climbed when I was with SOD in my year between high school and college.    Anna and her mother What a week! So much happened. On Monday, I mother from just outside of Dodoma brought her baby into the office. Her baby, Anna is 10 ½ months old and weight 6kg (about 13lbs). This is severely underweight and stunted in growth. She looked otherwise healthy with no obvious developmental delay, so we started her on the plumpy-nut program.  Mmmmm... plumpy nut Plumpy nut is a nutritional supplement that is super high in calories and protein. The Tanzanian government provides GHMD with supplies of it and then we send back reports. We started Anna on a 2 pack a day regimen. She will come back once a week to get weighed and reassessed. She’ll continue the plumpy nut until she reaches a normal weight and remains stable at that weight for 2 weeks. She’s such a smiley happy girl. A real charmer! If her mo weren’t so in love with her, I might want to take her home Here is a picture of baby Anna and her mother, and of me sampling a packet of plumpy nut. It tastes like super sweet, thick and oily peanut butter.  Tiffanne and Mama Neema teaching about Breastfeeding On Thursday we had the fellowship time out in Ipagala (just outside of Dodoma). Ipagala is a very poor area of the municipality but there is a small Mennonite church here that houses a second arm of GHMD. There are about 25 HIV+ women here who are cared for by GHMD. We have fellowship once a month where someone does some teaching and then we eat together. This month, Tiffanee taught on breastfeeding. SOOO important! Many women here do not breastfeed properly and as a result many babies are malnourished when they don’t have to be. Chubby babies are a rarity. The women were really receptive to the teaching and were excited to know more about how breastfeeding works and what the best way is to do it. We encouraged them to educate their daughters and friends about how to breastfeed and I think they were excited to do so! Success!  A teenager receiving a mattress and a month of food Friday was one of the most moving days I have experienced here. We had the LaHash Christmas gift distribution to all the kids. Each sponsor had the opportunity to give money to buy one or more gifts they selected for their sponsor kid. Also, we received homemade card from LaHash and from Cards for Kids to give to each kid. They enjoyed reading them and looking at the pictures that were made for them. They will all likely hang the card up in their home and look at it every day and think about the people who cared enough to make them for them. I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by it but I found myself with tears running down my face.  Sauda and her beloved sewing machine These children have nothing, and expect nothing and have never before received a gift. Many just had a deer in the headlights look of complete shock but many were grinning from ear to ear. One cried with joy as she received a mattress to sleep on (most of these kids sleep on dirt or concrete floors.) and one child’s mother sobbed as she gratefully received food that would last their family 2 months. I have never in my life been so grateful for anything. It was so humbling. I wish each sponsor could see the difference they’re making in these kids lives, I wish they could be here and experience the joy I experienced that day. One of the highlights of the gift distribution was when Sauda received a sewing machine! Sauda is a teenage girl who is HIV+. Both her parents have died and she is living by herself. She’s currently enrolled in tailoring school and will finish in a semester. The gift of a sewing machine is the gift of an occupation, a gift of being able to support herself. She was overjoyed and didn’t even want to leave her new gift to get her lunch. (we assured her we would watch it and she finally agreed to go eat).  Sophia leaving the hospital for the first time in 1 1/2 years! Another wonderful thing was that Sophia was able to join us! Sophia is a teenage girl who has been in the hospital for over 1 ½ years. She woke up one morning and couldn’t move her body. She have now recovered feeling and movement everywhere except her legs but is being kept in the hospital because she was made a ward of the state. She has not left the hospital in 1 ½ years!! We were able to take her for the day so she could receive her gifts. I can’t even imagine the thrill of leaving a hospital you’ve been confined to for so long. And even better, the doctors are now saying she can be discharged next week! Another special moment was giving Amida (my sponsor girl) the gift I got her, a new traditionally Tanzanian skirt and blouse and a pair of nice shoes. Here is a picture of a little boy reading his card, and of me and Amida. I just feel so blessed to have been included in such a special day. I hope I will always remember it and remember not to take things like a mattress and shoes for granted.   On Tuesday I started my client interviews! I went on 3 home visits to interview GHMD clients. I learned a lot already and it was quite exhilarating to realize that I planned this research project and now I’m actually doing it!! I feel like a ‘real’ researcher! I had 48 people sign up to be interviewed so I guess now I only have 45 to go! (I’m going to have a busy next couple months).  Collecting surveys from the peer educators On Friday, GHMD did a school event with their peer educators. Three secondary schools combined together for this event. The peer educators (who are all LaHash kids) helped by doing pre and post surveys of kids’ HIV knowledge, and their choir performed. The schools put on skits (that were supposed to be about HIV, but I think only that 1 was), and there were acrobats that came for entertainment. Then Tiffanee taught about what HIV is and how to prevent it. She used visuals that really seemed to grab the kids attention… including a condom which the kids couldn’t stop laughing about (and made the pastor look uncomfortable). I think they learned something. It’s hard to tell with teenagers, but I hope something got across to these kids. They were really interested in Tiffanee’s visuals so I think they must have gotten something. Here is a pictures of Miriam teaching the kids and of Tiffanee showing the kids a condom.    Amida with her teacher In other news, I have decided to sponsor a child through LaHash. If you think back to one of my first posts, I was following a girl around trying to get her enrolled in school. That’s my girl! Her name is Amida and she was born with HIV, both her parents have passed and she’s living with a foster family right now. I hope to get to spend some more time with her. I’m excited to be able to personally know the girl I’m sponsoring, and I’m excited to help make her childhood a little better. I hope to post more on her later. There are 12 more kids in the program without sponsors, so if anyone is interested, let me know. I can give you more information and hook you up! Sand dams, Bednets and Shoes 02/11/2012
 Al surveying a sand dam On Thursday, I accompanied Al (the husband of my mentor, Tiffanee) as he and his team went out into the villages to check in on their sand dam sites. Their team (partnering with MCC) works with community groups to help them build and learn to maintain their own sand dam. So what IS a sand dam? I had a hard time understanding it myself until I saw them. So, you know how when you dig deep enough in a dry river bed there is water? Sand dams are based on that concept. Most of the rivers in this area are intermittent, only flowing right after a rainfall. So, they build a cement dam over this intermittent river. It doesn’t dam the water though per say, it dams the sand. During the rainy season, (December to April) the river brings sand down and it gets stuck behind the cement wall. All of this sand ‘holds’ water, so if you dig in it there is water to be found, but the dam has increased the amount of sand, and therefore the amount of water. Then they sink a pump into the ground so the community doesn’t even have to dig to get this extra water, they just pump it out! It works amazingly well! It can produce enough water for the community to hold them through most of the year. Added bonus for some of these sites.. sand is a natural purifier so it helps make the water a little cleaner! See the photo section for some more photos I took while out in the village.  Mending the bednet Friday, I taught the kids again. This time I taught about malaria and bednets. To illustrate how important bednets are I had a girl lay on the floor and several other kids help hold a bed net up over her. Then I had a little girl come play the part of the mosquito! (The kids thought this was hilarious). When the girl had the bed net over her, the ‘mosquito’ couldn’t get to her. Then I turned the net around and showed a big hole, of course the ‘mosquito’ climbed through and got the sleeping girl. The kids went wild with this. They thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. I’m thrilled it made an impression! Then a spread the net out and we all practiced mending the many little holes in the net. They were all already pros, but I reinforced it I guess.  Tying on the new shoes The Lahash kids get 1 new pair of shoes a year, and today was shoe day! Imagine going shoe shopping with 100+ kids. Oh my. We had measured the kids feet and bought them the right size shoes, but inevitably there were many kids whose shoes didn’t fit so we traded and replaced until they all had fitting shoes. It reminded me of trying on skates at the ice rink as a kid; a room full of people trying on shoes and seeing if they fit, and returning them for a different size. I wish all their sponsors could have seen them strutting around in their new shoes. I’ve never seen kids so thrilled about a pair of plain black shoes. Tanzanian Pancakes! 02/07/2012
 Desperately trying to prevent burning This past Saturday, I got it in my head that I was going to make Pancakes for my host family. They had seen a picture I brought of Vaughn making pancakes and were sure that he was making Chapati (a flat bread here). (They were also very concerned that I was letting 'the man' cook :P ) . I tried to explain pancakes but they had never heard of them before. of course, this had to be remedied.After biking all around town to scrounge up the ingredients (pancake syrup is not a common thing here), I had my host mom show me how to use the charcoal stove. I discovered that charcoal stoves are very difficult to maintain the appropriate pancake cooking temperature thus I had to take the pan on and off several times in the course of cooking one pancake to prevent burning. In the end, everyone in the compound came over to see what the Mzungu had made, They all gasped with horror as a squirted copious amount of the syrup onto the pancakes, each each asked only for a drop on theirs (the missed out on the best part of pancakes!). They said they liked them.... but they might have just been being polite. As it turns out, raw sugar (which is what they have here, doesn't mix into the batter as well as refined sugar so the pancakes were not a sweet as I would have liked them. Now that I have the hang on this charcoal stove, perhaps I'll try my hand at it again another Saturday. Here are some pictures from the adventure.    |
RSS Feed