Day 24- Who knew bonding could happen in a pool of sweat

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
KidzCare Orphanage Day today!

It is always an exciting morning, when preparing to go visit the kids. Today we were able take four of us interns: Karisa, Kara, myself and Jesse. It was Jesse's first time today, so I was excited to introduce the children to her and to see what she thought of her time.
It was a rainy morning and I wondered what games we would play with the kids if we had to stay inside. I was not keen on getting wet this time around; I think the rain is bumming me out. It can get cold when it rains and I do not fancy the chills!
I always enjoy our rides to the orphanage because Mary has a great deal of stories and information to share and I enjoy the opportunity to be enlightened. She was discussing her travel to the south, in the near future, to visit the two rural schools they have running down there. She was invited myself and any other interns that are interested to take the journey with her. It sounds like it would be an incredible experience! I definitely want to go with her and I am pretty sure our risk assessors will "okay" the proposal!
Listening to Mary talk about what they have done and how they run their organization, I realized how much I wanted to be a part of it, if even something small, and help in some way. I was able to discuss with Mary my interests in assisting her organization and she was grateful. She told me the biggest need for funding was in regards to education. In the orphanage, she had five kids that would be going to secondary school next year and the cost is high. It costs $1000 USD/per kid each year. We are currently discussing options for fundraising and ways I can do so back in Canada.
We were all brought to the house, while Mary walked a little girl to the nursery school. We went in and found that the children from the hospital were staying there. Although Mary only has 15 children that live there permanently, she houses children who are recovering from surgeries done at the hospital. There was a boy and a girl who both had a full leg cast on one of their legs and we went over and said hello. The casts were bare, with only "Habari" written on it. So we got a marker and drew pictures on their casts and the kids started to laugh. We drew the sun, a soccer ball, a butterfly, a star and a smiley face.
I noticed a few of the children running around and we soon found out all the kids were home from school today. We were not sure if it was due to the rain, but we were happy to see them all!
Before we started to play with the kids, we walked over to the nursery school to talk to Mary and see where she wanted us. We were split up and Jesse and Kara stayed at the school while Karisa and I went back to play with the kids at the home.
Because it was raining, we were sitting on the porch playing and talking to the kids when we were suddenly escorted into the eating area and being fed. We were just about to play a game with the kids when it happen, so we decided we would quickly eat. A few minutes later, Jesse and Kara arrived as they were called for Chai time too. We all sat and ate and then made our way back to the kids. Thankfully by this time the rain had stopped, so we went out into the yard to play games. We played the same games we had played the past times and it was a lot of fun.
As we took out our cameras to start taking pictures, the kids decided they were the photographers and requested our cameras, to which we gladly complied. They ran around and took pictures of everything. Going through our cameras after, I found it interesting to see the world through the eyes of the kids. What they took pictures of and what they saw as important or interesting enough to photograph amazed me.

I found it amusing that within only a short while the kids taught themselves how to take the classic North American photo of themselves... you all know the ones I am talking about. Turning the camera around to face you and clip! That is John(he took the picture himself), he is fifteen and appreciated my ipod music that he and I listened to today! We also spent time collecting all the gravel in a huge dirt pile... we filled 7 garbage bag sized bags of rocks/gravel. It was a good two and a half hours of work in the sun... but I felt like we bonded. He is one of the children who has been a little reserved with us interns, so I took the opportunity to spend some one on one time with him and have a somewhat successful conversation with him. He understands and speaks English quite well in comparison to the rest. He is a hard working kid, but I often found him look back at all the children playing with the other interns and I wondered if he had a choice of doing this job or if it was a responsibility...
Half way through the day I felt so exhausted, along with a lot of the children and a couple other interns. Most of us ended up passing out on the couches and floor in the house for a while. One of the kids snapped a picture of Kara and I sleeping. It was not on my camera so I will see if I can track it down on the other intern's camera to upload it here.
It was exciting to see the kids take a game it showed them last time we visited and put there twist on it. Hopscotch! It was awesome now they changed the rules slightly. And the hopscotch itself took up the length and width of an SUV. lol We have a lot of fun with the kids, and shortly after the games the kids started to play with our hair. They swarmed around us all and started braiding in all sizes. It was a fun experience. For the first bit the girls just ran their fingers through my hair, it was nice. I wondered how often they had felt hair like ours, or if they had at all. I wish they had long hair that I could braid for them... I even had a boy, Abraham, braid my hair.
We continued to play games and by the end of the day(two hours later than was planned to leave... African time lol) Abraham came and gave me a hug and sat next to me with his arm around me. It was adorable and I thanked him again for braiding my hair. He grinned, quickly jumped up and started to redo all my braids until I had to go.
Hugging the kids good bye today was the hardest for me... I knew this would happen, but it does not make it any easier. At least I have another month with them...

I love these kids so much! I can hardly wait for the next day to go visit me! <3


A awesome quote I just heard that I wanted to share with you!!

"Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

Moriah

Day 23- who needs electricity at work? pfft! Electricity is for chumps!

So... no electricity at work=work from home. I can appreciate that...
Something that you might have noticed if you've been following my blogs is I have been going to the orphanage a few times. Well, Cherie has asked me to take over coordinating trips out there. I was so happy when she asked me to because I am loving my time with the kids. So we will be going to the orphanage again tomorrow. I am setting up to see who wants to go for the day.
Today was not much of a busy day. There was an article in the newspaper talking about the reports done for DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] of women who were raped. I was estimated that ___(misplaced the article.. i will fill in ASAP) women were raped every two hours. DRC is known as the capital for rape in the world. Regardless of this fact, the article discusses the inaccuracy of the research, due to in part, that there are women who claim to be raped to receive free health care. In Democratic Republic of Congo, rape victims receive free health care while other women with health needs have to pay. These women do not have the luxury that us Canadians do, where health care is provided by the government and a doctors appointment does not empty the piggy bank! Although this article questions the results of the research done on rape stats in DRC, it in no way makes light to the reality of life in DRC.
Rape is just a part of life, even though there are laws prohibiting forced prostitution, and human trafficking for sexual exploitation with penalties up to 20 years of jail time. Out of the reported incidents, so few are actually investigated. This reference only the victims who courageously report the crime. What about the women who remain silent? Not to mention there are rape victims who end up killed as a result. Their violations go unheard.
In Democratic Republic of Congo, women are seen as property and the men, even boys, are brought up to believe that they have the right to force intercourse on a woman for their own pleasure. Rape is used as a weapon of war, with the most vulnerable victims being females.
Talk about the lowest of lows, when it comes to women's rights! These women do not even have choice or control over their own bodies and what it is used for. It is tragic to learn that the young boys in DRC are told they have the right to a woman in this way.
These women have no choice, but to accept rape as a part their lives. Like the article states, DRC is the capital of rape in the world! What a terrifying way to live, fearing the inevitable, inhuman actions of the male population of your country. It is estimated that 400,000 surviving rape victims are living in DRC currently.
I'd like to know how many criminals, who are in jail, are in for rape! What is the point of making laws for security and justice, if your culture teaches you to do the very thing the laws prohibit?
That is all the time I have to talk about this subject at the moment... because honestly... It makes me sick. However, it is worth looking into further and comparing it to the stats from Canada... or Tanzania.

It's not always good to be called an angel

May.12^th, 2011

First things first! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY ADORABLE, BRIGHT AND ENERGETIC LITTLE BROTHER WHO TURNS 7 TODAY!!! Hope it is amazing and you remember how much I love you! I’ll bring you a present home from Tanzania!!

So, it has been a few days since I have written. This lifestyle quickly gets busy and power is a luxury item. It was day two for our Kiswahili lessons! Our teachers are awesome and they make it a lot of fun. It is  

First off, some things I have learned while I have been out here for 10 or 11 days are:

·         *Toilet paper comes in blue and pink out here. Who would have thought?

·         *Toilets flush with the strength of a tidal wave, while the water in a shower drips out!

·         *Cold showers are the coolest thing since ice cubes… they are also not voluntary!

·         *Drainage is nonexistent. When it rains, the vehicles swim in “puddles” of water at least a foot deep!

·         *The power going out is as common as the sun rising

·         *Love at first sight is something they believe in here

·         *Driving into oncoming traffic is NOT counterproductive!!

·         *Sidewalks are for buses and any other vehicles… oh and yeah, pedestrians too

·         *There is no such thing as "the right of way"

·         *Seatbelts are optional if you are not in the front seat...

·         *Hit and runs are encouraged here...[I will explain below]

·         *A cloudy morning means a hot day

·         *A blue sky morning means a cloudy day

·         *Oranges are green here

·         *When you order chicken pizza... there is a 50/50 chance you might end up with just a whole chicken instead

·         *Tanzania's idea of saving electricity is to take one week and turn off all electricity in the city for 16 hours/day.

·         *In Tanzania you get your milk on the shelf, not a refrigerated section… That’s right! The milk can last as long as juice sitting on the shelves!

·         *Sugar cereal is $13.00 USD a small box [example: Lucky Charms, Nesquik, Reeses Cups]

·         *It is more common that an ATM will steal your money than a stranger standing behind me

·         *Most common female names out here are: Mary and Maria! Been here 10 days and I know 5 Marys and 3 Marias

·         *Rush hours are 6:30am-9:30pm [estimates… it can be longer]. For 90% of the time you are pretty much in a traffic jam.

·         *If your flax seeds are moving on your multi-grain cracker it is just added protein

·         *Tanzania calls their margarine/butter like it is: Fat Spread

·         *Pay-as-you-go EVERYTHING! Seriously. 

        *Tanzania’s slogan: Hurry up to Wait! 

*****NUMBER ONE INTERESTING FACT ABOUT TANZANIA [so far]: Moriah is pronounced “Malaya” which in Kiswahili means “Prostitute” or “Angel of the night”. SWEEEETTTT…[sidenote: I have started to introduce myself as “Maria” now]

I have been doing some editing with my placement and will be attending a African Wedding with Mary from Womens Fund Tanzania. I purchased a dress from mwenge market for about $14 dollars. I have been sick the last few days and I have no idea why. I am pretty low energy and I think I am dealing with some culture shock.

I’d write more, but I am pretty tired and I need to get up early tomorrow morning.

Moriah

Day 22- Productivity is a myth, aloe vera is my best friend, and Japanese food is killer in Dar!

Good afternoon students, teachers, ladies, gentlemen and the little people in the back...

Today I'd like to talk to you about how my volunteer day went, how aloe vera helped me through some heated moments, and why Japanese food deserves a golden star out here in Dar.

As a young child I always had a dream... a dream that soon became my reality here in Dar. I have always wanted to find a myth... and today is the day I found that myth! Productivity in Dar es Salaam. If anyone tells you they were being productive.... first question you need to ask is: "Are you in Dar es Salaam?" If the answer is yes you know their previous statement is not true and its an illusion. You do not believe me? pfft... you bring me the guys from MythBusters and we can talk...

So I forgot to mention to you on my Zanzibar trip I got sliiiiightly burnt on my back while snorkeling. oops!! Thankfully I have dear intern friends who aloe me all day er' day! All good! I <3 aloe vera! Saves me from myself.

So at work today we were expecting a productive day. It does not hurt to have expectations... as long as you do not actually expect them to happen. I can appreciate hard work.... and I can accept that bosses do not show up to work all day. I actually love hard work, truly! This lack of productivity has been my #1 most frustrating part of the culture to adapt to. I have accepted it... it is all good now. Not really, but I can deal!

We went for lunch with Nikki and Olive to the Japanese restaurant again and I got this cold noodle veggie dish that was heavenly. Truthfully, I have never tasted a more delicious dish in a long time! On the way back I learned some good information that will help to save me a few hours every Monday! I can buy all my internet time at one time and just activate 7500 at a time and all of it can be loaded by meeeee. Oh happy day! It is like the clouds had cleared, the rain and stopped and the heavens opened up! Okay... maybe not that exciting, but I was happy to save myself a lot of time and do something for myself.

Other than volunteering and lunch, I did not get up to much. I mean, we went home and did the whole dinner thing, socializing and to be honest.... sleep. Sleep is so important out here because the heat tires you out really quickly, so if you do not get enough sleep you could end up passing out unintentionally. Not really my cup of tea...

I wonder what tomorrow holds for me... I'd like to think productivity...

zanziBAR... some night life they have! haha

 What could be better than seeing the sunrise while on a plane? Not many things! The plane ride to Zanzibar was a grand total of 15 minutes if you including the getting on and off the plane. It was like a roller coaster ride with a killer view! Yay for turb!

 We love ZANZIBAR!! The airport is about a quarter the size of Abbotsford Airport! lol love it! Off we go to find the inn we are staying at! yes!

 Uhh... it is somewhere around here... Alley after alley we were trekked around looking for our inn. We found our inn but some guys in the inn decided we should stay at a different one. So they trekked us over to "Adam's Inn" and tried to convince us this was better than "Princess Salme Inn" to which we said "Hawezi Kana" [not a chance in hell] and we went back to Princess!

 There was a lot of mixing up of rooms and reservations and fun stuff like that! After only a couple hours... we were all sorted out, paid up and walking into our rooms of magic... It's always good to feel like a princess in Stone Town...

How perfect is this! Our beds are so close to each other that if either of us roll off our beds... we will not fall to the ground! Perks! You cannot tell by the picture.. but there is a good sized ledge that we have to jump off of to get into the room... oh yes, it is luxury to the max! haha The beds were super comfy and I loved my shower head! It was actually over my head and warmish water came out! Heaven!!!

When we got there we walked around and looked in all the shops. This area is mega wazungu[white people/europeans] area and way to over priced! You can tell it is touristy because things I can get for 1000 tsh they were charging 8000 tsh-15,000 tsh. I bargained with them for some things, but I decided Dar is where the purchases are at!
So, what is the worst thing to forget when going away for the weekend? Any guesses on what I forgot? UNDIES! Yeah, grand! As if I want to go shopping for undies in stone town... YIKES! I had to skip our stone town tour to go shop and thankfully Jodi came with me! The stone tour I hear was amazing! They visited the slave market, saw a castle and some really old and beautiful architecture! We met up with them for dinner at a awesome restaurant. We sat on pillows on the floor and I had a really good veggie curry! It was an expensive restaurant... [in comparison to our prices back in Dar] I think I spent almost 20,000 tsh which is like $13! Yikes! Pricey food!
Day one is done!
Day two consisted of the following!:
-SPICE TOUR!!
-first we took a boat ride to prison island were we fed tortoises which ranged from age young[umm 10?]-185 and visited the ruins there.

-snorkeling in the Indian Ocean where we saw zebra fish, nemos, clown fish, these neon blue fish and 50 other kinds I could not tell you the names of them!
-returning on a boat ride back to Zanzibar Island and went for lunch at a local persons house. We sat on mats outside and ate the usually Tanzanian/Zanzibar food... the bananas and then the rice and then a few other cool things. Food tastes so good here! mmm YUM!

-Went around the forest and saw all the spices they grow there!
Anywhere from nutmeg, lemon grass, iodine, cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa, jasmine, tumic, etc. I cannot remember all the spices, there were so many! 

This is a guy that came around with us and our tour guide and showed us the spices, etc. That is nutmeg right there. Fun fact!!: Guys here will feed their wives nutmeg because it gets girls excited... LOL I found it amusing that the guide told us AFTER he gave all of us some nutmeg to taste... hahaha.
This guy was also #2 for proposals for me. Good times!

After the whole tour that took all day, we went for dinner to celebrate Kara's 19th birthday! We danced a bit to a live band, but quickly learned there is no such thing as night life out here in clubs or bars or anything. We just wanted to go out and dance for a bit, but even when we moved to Livingstone's where they had a dance floor AND a live DJ... we were still the ONLY people dancing... weird. Oh well! We arrived home just after 11:30pm and a few of us still stayed up on the rooftop for a bit. Good times!
End of day two!
Sunday May 22nd!
We woke up, checked out, and went to a local market for shopping They have a few thousand fabrics to choose from and the prices for a meter are CRAZY cheap! So that was fun, and then we walked through slave market until we ended up at a cafe for lunch.

Then we went back home... To Dar

The end!

Day 18: Dinner with Guests!

Hey hey Guys,

I tell you, this whole blogging everyday is becoming the devil. There is so many things we do in a day, that at the end of the day I am SERIOUSLY dragging myself to bed. I am over a week behind, which has never happened yet. I guess its good to do everything once.
So thuuuursday of last week! That was the 19th of May. It was full of working on paperwork and shopping. If you could understand how long it takes us to get from one place to another, you would understand why an entire morning can consist of doing ONE 30min shop. It takes about an hour to get to the place and an hour home. The place is an hour WALK... that is how bad the traffic here is. I will take pictures of it from my roof. Next time you are stuck in an traffic jam out there... just remember the traffic I described out here and you will not feel so bad.
So today was a sad day! Even with all the happiness that comes from each day here, our first intern leaves for home tomorrow! Nicole was here for two weeks and returned home for her young daughters medical appointments at children's hospital. So, this was our last dinner with her and thankfully Cherie, Alex, Nicole, myself and.... oh gosh another person [hahah that is what i get for not writing for a weeeeeekkkkkk] went for drinks to say goodbye at slipway! It was such a good day, but we were all sad to see Nicole leave.
Jesse and I had cooking duties today, which was great! We had two CIDA interns join us for dinner and one of the kids from Boona Banna. We made a pasta salad and an amazing veg salad. Both were great, everyone loved it and Olive and Nikki [CIDA interns] brought african donuts for dessert.
These bad boys are huge. Think of a tim hortons donut with a hole in the middle and chocolate icing with sprinkles on top. Got the image? Okay, now supersize that donut and those are African donuts out here! Huge goodness! YUM!
After dinner we watched some clips from a debate on aid for Africa. Two were for aid and two were against, both amazing! It really opens your eyes to understand the pros and cons of aid and how it can enable negative results. You should check it out if you are interested and have time!

This is one of the debates that is FOR aid in Africa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WClqi4Yr3Ys
This is one of the dates that is AGAINST aid in Africa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enDmHgJC4eY

The whole debate is worth watching. It gives you a better perspective on aid to governments in Africa! If you do watch them, post and let me know your thoughts on the debates! I would love to hear your thoughts!
The boy who is 16 years old from Boona Banna [Lynus] enjoyed the debate and was happy to learn that we were aware of the corruption of their government and how the government treats him and his people. The boy is highly intelligent and a real go getter. Boona Banna is an orphanage of about 7 or 8 kids. Most are older kids in their early teens who have some heart breaking stories.
We sent the rest of our food with Lynus for the Boona Banna kid and called it a night!

Nicole and I hanging out for the last time :]

PICTURES WORK!!!!!

Here are a few pictures I have wanted to show you guys!!
Drum roll please......
Here is the green oranges we eat almost every morning!

Here is the view from my place!!!

And some lovely creatures!

Can you fall in love AND have your heart broken all at once? Well, that just happened

Wednesday May 18th, 2011

ORPHANAGE DAY!!! YAY!

So I was not able to go jog the beach this morning because I had to leave my house at 6:30am to meet up with Mary-o [the woman who runs the orphanage] at HOPAC at 7am. I went with four other interns from our group: Kara, Jodi, Karisa, and Mike.

Breakfast does not exist at this time of the morning! At least not much more than a piece of toast. Yummy in my belly!

We all were not too sure what to expect today, but I was happy when Mary told us we were going to go teach at their nursery school for the morning before their children come home from school.

As we pulled in the driveway I could hear children singing from afar and I could not help but smile. We walked over to the school from the orphanage and after meeting both classes we split up into groups for the two classes. Karisa, Mike and I went into the larger class of slightly older kids, while Kara and Jodi taught the younger, smaller class.

They sang for us and we taught them English kid songs, reviewed the alphabet and taught them some English words. They told us their names, but I do not remember them. We had, in total, almost fifty kids in the school with kids as young as four years old.

Shortly after we took them all outside to play games. We all joined up, and tried to play "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" which ended up getting kids hurt and crying [hehe ooops]. So, I guess the kids did not fully understand that when the "wolf" [aka Mike] yelled lunchtime and turned around to chase them that it was part of the game. The kids got so scared they were crying while they ran. Unfortunately, it resulted in kids falling and tripping other kids. aww! Way to go Canadians! haha soooo......

NEW GAME!

We tried "Duck duck goose" and it worked a lot better. Unfortunately, with over fifty people playing... it went slowish and not everyone got a turn. Oh and I forgot to tell you!! Three of the kids that got so scared from Mike did not play any more games. haha Mike felt terrible.

After that game we tried another game that was again quickly abandoned until we found that playing London Bridge was a fun game for them.

We switched it up and took groups of kids and read them stories. I was so surprised at how attentive my kids were until I realized they were NOT looking at me, but rather my sunglasses on my head. I took them off and let the kids try them on. Well they went nuts with excitement and fought over the shades. They loved them so much it made me laugh. That was the end of my storytelling. After we read books it was home time, so we got some pictures with the kids which they LOVED! The kids took my shades and I took pictures of them all with my shades. They were so excited just to wear them and then to see the pictures of themselves sent them through the roof. They really did not want to leave and it took a long time before children actually felt for home.

Returning to the orphanage, we were escorted to the lunch building and served lunch. The food was amazing and being that we were starving, we ate good. By the time we finished eating some of the kids were coming home and greeting us with hugs. We started to play frisbee and hopscotch with them while we waited for the remaining kids. That is when one of the twin boys started to play frisbee with me. His brother played with Mike. He was so cute and made me laugh almost constantly. I taught him how to throw a frisbee under his leg and he loved it! Mike and I joined up with playing frisbee and they started to call us "Uncle" and "Aunt". We had a hopscotch relay race in groups and our team kicked butt!

When the rest of the kids came home, we were escorted again to the lunch building and fed AGAIN. Like two hours later! The food is so good out here, I hope to make some of it when I return to Kanada. 

Just as we were finishing our meal it started to rain. If you remember what I have said in previous posts, when it rains it POURS and it was nothing short of that. The way the orphanage is set up, it has a courtyard in the middle and each building is touching, but separate. You know you are a BCian when you run into the rain and take pleasure in getting soaked! The children stood in the door ways watching us as we danced in the rain and stuck our tongues out to get raindrops on them. We decided to do some jumping photos in the rain and when we invited the children to join us, a few did!! A boy named Abraham came and stood next to me. He held my hand and was grinning from ear to ear. We got a ton of pictures with the kids as we jumped in the rain. The number of kids increased by each jump and soon we could barely all fit in the picture. When we were waiting to do one of the jumps Abraham was telling the other kids my name that he had remembered I guess. I was so impressed, he even said it in the proper English pronunciation "Moriah" and not the "Malaya" that everyone else says... Well he sure made my day! 

Once we dried off we all sat on the porch and sang/danced to songs of theirs. They all have beautiful voices and smiles that make you melt. I found Abraham looking to me a lot and lighting up when I smiled at him. I fell in love today with these children. They have nothing, but they have everything. Their joy is contagious and their laughter calms me. It is hard to explain how they have changed me, but I felt such an overwhelming feeling of love toward them all. I wanted to hug them and never miss a moment of their lives.

After the first visit to the orphanage I had put up a wall to block off my feelings. So this time when I returned to the orphanage today, I was ready to play and enjoy my time while staying reserved. After playing, laughing and letting the boys take my camera around to take pictures, my wall started to shake until the moment when Abraham took my hand and smiled up at me-- then my wall came crashing down. It was hard to let myself love these children because I still feared that in the end when I left I would hurt them. I fear the day I leave here and I fear that I might never return. 

I have recently been reading about the effects of volunteers and if they do more harm than good. At first thought anyone would agree with the notion that volunteers do good. Unfortunately, you cannot just leave it at that and those that do stay ignorant to an important reality. Coordinators of NGOs such as orphanages and other care facilities when questioned on the impact of short term volunteers all say that it is better for the children to have volunteers stay for longer periods of time. Volunteers coming and going in 2 week or 2 month periods can jade the children. They make friends and become attached to the volunteers and then suddenly they lose them and are forced to make friends with new volunteers who will then repeat the cycle. The reality is volunteers have all good intentions to stay in touch with the children they bond with and some even plan to visit. Unfortunately, the promises get left at the airport and the volunteers return back to their "normal lives" forgetting about the promises made. 

This is what has me concerned. I want to be the exception to this rule, but I am sure anyone who has volunteered felt like they would BE that exception. How many of us were? There are many other factors that are put on trial with regards to the notion that volunteers do more harm than good. I chose this particular one as it directly relates to my experience here in Dar es Salaam and as I spend time with these orphanage children. 

So, back to my day.... In any case, I had fallen in love today.
Moments before we left, I was talking to Mary-o [Orphanage Mary] privately and I held back tears as she told me six of these children are HIV positive. I was grateful she never told me which children did, as I do not think I could bare to know.
As we drove off the children ran after our vehicle screaming and waving. It was such a bittersweet moment that I had to turn away. The drive home was a daze. I could feel myself going numb and I could not stop it. I remained quiet as the other interns talked to Mary. The wind coming in through the window helped to keep my eyes dry, but a small tear did manage to fight its way past the wind and roll down my cheek. 
We thanked Mary-o and paid her for the travel and the food. We talked, in short, about the future visits and then she was on her way.
We made it home for dinner and peaches and pits. I am tired and I am going to go to sleep now.
Moriah

Two cultures collide...

Fun stories...

Monday was a great day... We woke up and went to our placement at Womens Fund Tanzania. Jesse and I decided we would leave at 8:00am instead of 7:30am and boy did we regret it. The traffic was brutal. Let me give you a little insight into the traffic out here. So... our placement is an hour walk from our home. If there was NORMAL traffic... it would be 5-10 min drive. When we leave at 7:30am it takes us 40 minutes to get there. 40!!! UGH! Now... this particular day, like I said, we left at 8:00am and figured... meh no big deal! It will take us 40 mins anyway, why not give myself enough time to eat after I exercised and give Jesse a better sleep-in. Well, it was a stupid mistake. It took us an hour to get to work... actually a little more than that and it was even MORE hot than at 7:30. Screw breakfast.. I do not want to come to work in a puddle of my sweat thank you very much! UGH!
So we get into WFT and Brian is already there, working away at his computer. We set up and I feel so freaking sleepy. I do not know what it is about this heat, but when I sit in a hot car for an hour or so... it makes me want to go back to bed.
I get a chai tea and we start working. Our internet is being slow as ever, but we grin and bear it. Brian gave us a list of organizations to look up and get a database started for them, which was great! We remembered this was our internet day/phone day [we have to buy internet and phone time weekly... like i say, EVERYTHING is pay as you go] so we decided when we went out for lunch we would stop in to shoppers and get it all loaded up.
About half way through all our working we get a cute little message on our computers saying "Your internet has expired. Thank you for using sasatel". haha sweeeeeetttttttt! haha I guess it's lunch time? The two other CIDA interns working upstairs at Sustainable Cities were leaving for lunch too, so we all walked down to an Japanese restaurant.
They have some really cool things out here for restaurants. I'll try to describe this one, as it is like nothing I've ever experienced. There is a courtyard with tables and you side out there to eat. There were actually TWO restaurants that cater to the customers out there and it is like a competition. Both waiters swarmed to us at our table offering their menus to us and waiting to see which restaurant we chose. I cannot remember the restaurant names, unfortunately, and my camera was dead from the wedding so there are no pictures! We chose the Japanese restaurant obviously and I got this HUGE meal and a drink for about $4. I could not even finish the meal it was so huge. We did stop and remember to get our internet and phone time and then returned to the office. We thought it was perfect timing because Mary was suppose to be in the office at 2:00pm and wanted to have a meeting with us about some of our projects and we had lots of questions needing to be answered that Brian could not answer.
Well, 3:00pm came and went and there was still no sign of Mary. Jesse and I exchanged looks and texts about this fact, but continued to research other NGOs and tried to wait patiently. Would you believe... 4:00pm came around and our driver was there waiting. No Mary for a meeting and no contact with her either informing us of the reasons for why she was not coming. I quickly sent off an email to Mary letting her know what we wished to discuss and informed her of our schedule changes due to the trip to the orphanage. We returned home and that was that. Another less than fully productive day.
That evening the power was out and Jodi and Kara had to make dinner in the dark. We had a candlelight dinner and when we did our peaches and pits... well Mary never showing up was my pit for sure!
I forgot to mention to you what peaches and pits are. Every day at dinner time we all go around the table and say our peach of the day [a good thing that happened that day] and our pit of the day [a bad thing that happened that day]. It is a great way to talk about our days and to express both good and bad things. It works great! I have considered writing my blogs like that. We shall see...
After dinner we all went up to the rooftop and played charades in the candlelight. Cherie called us from her hotel she was staying at and suggested we come for a late swim. Four of us were game: Sienna, Kara, Mike and myself so we called a driver left! We got to the hotel at about 10pm and told our driver to return at 11:30pm. The pool was outside and it was so refreshing! We ordered pina coladas and hung out with Cherie for a bit.
Came home, went to bed. The end.

Tuesday
We had kiswahili lesson this morning and it was just Big Boy! He discussed the differences in our cultures as well as the culture in Zanzibar. I learned a few interesting things about Tanzanian culture in comparison to Canadian culture. It explains a lot. I'll share with you as I think some of it is funny!

TANZANIA

KANADA

INDIRECT: TO SAVE FACE	DIRECT: YOU WANT THE JOKE TO BE DONE. DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE FEELINGS. JUST GET TO THE POINT
TIME(BOTH CULTURES IN THIS ARE MOVING TOWARD EACH OTHER): -TIME IS PLENTY -NO SCHEDULE/NO TIMETABLE -WASTE YOUR TIME=NO PROB	TIME(BOTH CULTURES IN THIS ARE MOVING TOWARD EACH OTHER): -TIME IS MONEY -SCHEDULE/TIMETABLE -WASTE YOUR TIME=ANGRY
STATUS: IN FORM OF ASCRIBED(FROM BIRTH) -IF A DOCTOR, DOESN’T MATTER IF HE IS TALKING NONSENSE, WILL LISTEN	STATUS: WORK FOR YOUR STATUS-ACHIEVED
SHAME: IF OTHERS FIND OUT YOU ARE A LIAR, STEALER=BIG SHAME BUT IF NO ONE WILL FIND OUT, DO IT!	GUILT: IF I STEAL THIS MONEY=IT’S NOT GOOD
UNCERTAINTY: IF SOMETHING IS UNKNOWN, IT WILL BE AVOIDED -HAVE A FEAR OF TRYING -DON’T CHANGE JOBS MUCH AND KIDS WILL DO THE SAME JOB TOO -CHANGE TAKES A LONG TIME	CERTAIN: IF SOMETHING IS UNKNOWN, WE WILL TRY -NO FEAR OF TRYING -CHANGE JOBS FREQUENTLY AND KIDS WILL DO DIFF JOBS -CHANGE HAPPENS FAST
COLLECTIVISM: WE DO THINGS TOGETHER/COLLECTIVELY. UNITY, WORKING TOGETHER, TEAM IS POWER -SHAKE HANDS FOR A LONG TIME	INDIVIDUALISM: COMPETE WITH EACH OTHER. I HAVE TO/I CAN DO IT.
DO’S	DON’TS
-ASK FOR PERMISSION BEFORE TAKING A PICTURE OF: PEOPLE, PLACE, HOME [DON’T BE SURPRISED IF THEY GIVE YOU THEIR ADDRESS AND ASK TO GET MAILED THE HARDCOPY… OR ASK FOR TSH]	DON’T BE SURPRISED IF SOMEONE IS SHAKING YOUR HAND FOR A VERY LONG TIME
	DON’T HANG YOUR UNDERWEAR TO DRY OUTSIDE FOR EVERYONE TO SEE, IT’S NOT ALLOWED. -WASH UNDERWEAR, HANG OUTSIDE TO DRY AND PUT A KANGA/SHIRT OVER IT TO DRY
	-DON’T FART IN PUBLIC. EXCUSE YOURSELF IF YOU NEED TO FART AND WAIT LONG ENOUGH TIME FOR VENTILATION BEFORE COMING BACK.

BODY GESTURES:

THUMBS UP: TZ: "I AM COOL"

WINK:  TZ: LET’S GO BABY

HANDSHAKE WITH THE ENDING SCRATCH: HI BABY I NEED YOU, I WANT YOU, LETS GO

INDEX FINGER TO SAY “COME HERE”: IS THE WAY THEY CALL THEIR DOG, NOT GOOD TO DO TO PEOPLE

-LOOK AT THE MAN DIRECTLY, IF YOU SHY AWAY HE THINKS IT MEANS HES GETTING LUCKY

-NO MEANS YES IN THIS COUNTRY (INDIRECTLY)

-NO MEANS: "SHE IS JUST NOT READY"

Hahahaha So, that is some stuff I learned from Big Boy!
After our class we were suppose to rush off to the orphanage but last minute got told for security reasons we
were not allowed to spend the night. I was pretty bummed, but we were going to leave to the orphanage Wednesday morning at 7am from HOPAC and spend the whole day, so I felt a bit better.
After our lesson a group of us went to shoppers with our driver, Iddie, and then he took us to his house where his wife had a small shop similar to the peanut lady. We buy our rice from here, so we got some and Iddie showed us his house. It was a little room where his wife, himself and their son slept. This area was gated, but there were many living here. It was not even like a house, but rather theses cement rooms built for many families side by side. They were so welcoming and not at all ashamed by their living standards. He also showed us where everyone cooked together on a fire pit and the other women out there preparing food offered me a seat next to them. I graciously accepted and talked to them about how they prepare food. It is amazing... I feel like my outlook on life changed in this moment. There was no embarrassment or shame but were so welcoming and happy to see us visit them. These people are so friendly and it humbles me to think back to the days when I was embarrassed by my living standards as a teenager. Out of respect, I did not ask to take pictures of their homes.
After that we all, for the most part, just hung out at the house and tanned on the deck. I had a great talk with Nicole, one of the other interns, and we shared some cool experiences. I had my first cry out here! YAY! It was a great cry... or at least I needed it. Dinner was amazing! We had wraps and they were sooooooo gooooood.
OH FUNNY FACT!!!
So in Kiswahili Tako means butt. One of our interns was helping out at her placement handing out burritos and tacos and she kept asking the children if they would like a tako! AHAHAHA Good times!
The end! :)

The Traditional African Wedding!

Good morning!
So this is a blog for Sunday May 15th, 2011
I woke up and jogged the beach with my professor Cherie and a few interns. We had breakfast and then the rest of the interns woke up... an hour or so later? We all ended up on the roof top tanning in the beautiful sunshine! The sun is so much hotter here, I find myself running low on sunscreen! We did get a little rain every few hours which is so refreshing. We just remain lying down and after a few minutes of rain the sun returns and dries us off.
Jesse and myself were invited by the organizer of WFT (our NGO we intern at) to attend a party which is part of the wedding celebration out here. It is a traditional party and we also brought Sienna, another intern, with us to the party.
A wedding consists of three parties: The kitchen party, the send off party, and then the ceremony/reception.
The party we attended was "The Kitchen Party" which is strictly for women only. We were told to arrive at 3:30pm and since we are Canadian... we showed up at 3:15pm only to find out we had beat almost every single person there, including the caterers. Go figure! So we walked around and took some pictures of the church, a cemetery and some flowers. The party started at 5:30pm and it was amusing to see on the "program" for the night it showed the event started at 3pm. Oh how I love African time!!
This event basically consists of dancing and a few speeches and... then at the end you eat. They had songs/dances for different African countries, as well as cities and then certain dances for the bride... etc. Mary was great at explaining a lot to us. The party happens a week before the wedding ceremony and only females are allowed, mainly from the brides side. This party is a big deal for the women. These women
are controlled and very suppressed by their husbands, and so their husbands don't want them at this party for a few reasons. First reason is that the conversations the women have will give the women "new ideas" like... standing up for themselves! And the second reason is that if they complain to the other women about their abuse, such as being beaten or abused then the other women will tell someone else and the husband will get talked to and told to stop beating their wife... at which point the husband has to stop. So, while all these
women were their.. the husbands watched from the vehicles and called them constantly. It seemed so unfair to these women that their husbands wouldn't even leave them alone! However, most of the women
ignored the phone calls for the first few hours and only when it was close to the end of the dancing, when dinner was about to take place, was when I saw them answering their phones. This party is where the wives can dressed up and feel free to express themselves and do something for themselves. It was truly an honor to be welcomed into this night of refuge.

We danced one of the circle dances where everyone dances in a huge circle to a few songs. We did not have much interaction with anyone other than each other. Mary got a picture of us dancing, which I will try to post sometime soon. After that we returned to our seats and watched others dance. We were slightly isolated and only greeted when someone greeted Mary and then they felt obligated. Something cool about their greeting is they do the handshake like boys do or like young friends do their own handshakes. I thought it was interesting to see even the old ladies doing it to greet everyone.
After a few more dances one of the younger women came over and invited us to come dance with them. This was just dancing wherever on the floor and not in any formation. We all went out there and danced our takos off. For the first song or two the women would were dancing with us seemed to be passing us off to one another kind of like they were doing there "good deed" of dancing with the wazungu [white people] and then literally pulling a friend into the circle and then running off to dance with others. We did not mind and just kept dancing until these two older ladies joined us and actually cheered us on and stayed the whole time. I guess these thought we did not suck too bad! We laughed and took turns dancing in the middle of our circle while the rest cheered. It was SO much fun. We also noticed that the camera guy would point the camera right at us every time we was on our dance floor [there were two dance floors]. I was not sure if they did that cause we were the wazungu or if they wanted to make fun of our dancing later. In any case, we were spotlighted all night with photographers taking our pictures all night. It was really obvious and awkward at some points and they would get rather close to our faces and it happened at least a dozen times. hahaha, It felt like I was famous or something (reminder: I do not want to be famous). We finally sat down after we sweat off a few litres and Mary and her friends from the table went up and danced. It was really cute though, as we walked back to our seats all these women were smiling at us and saying "good job" pretty much. I did notice while we were up their dancing EVERYONE from the tables were staring at us... good fun!
Our driver came at 7:30pm, just as the food was coming out. So we quickly grabbed some African food that I could not tell you all of what it was, scarfed it and ran out of there. On our way out one of the photographers tried to sell us our photos. So, for 4000 tsh we bought all 5 of the pictures. Two group ones and then an individual picture of each of us. haha
Got home exhausted and talked for a little but very quickly crashed as I was exhausted.

*insert catchy title here* I do not know what to put, INVESTOURS AMAZING!

14/May/2011

I woke up and went for a nice long walk to the beach and then jogged the shoreline as the sun rose; In this moment, I feel a joy no word could describe.
I returned to the guesthouse and had breakfast and showered. We had our third Kiswahili lesson from Big Boy and Dao. We learned how to take our sentence structures and turn them into the negative. Instead of "mimi ninapenda Tanzania" which means I like/love Tanzania he taught us how to change the words to say "mimi sipendi Tanzania" which means I do not like/love Tanzania. It was great fun and do not worry... mimi ninapenda Tanzania!! We also learned how to tell time and write/speak the dates. Their time here is crazy! If I were to say come pick me up @ "tano"... tano is 5 so naturally you would think he would come at 5. NOPE! Tano is actually 11 o'clock. haha Its hilarious! Actually, it's slightly complicated, but once you get it, it can be a lot of fun.
After our class we rushed off almost immediately. The term "rush" of course is used loosely as we did not actually rush, but rather... we chose to walk up the street to the bakery because our drivers weren't at our house. We had signed up for a tour with Investours which is by the Mwenge Market. I had no idea what to expect, as I had not read up on this company and was just informed it cost us $35 USD[discounted student rate, normally it is $50 USD] to take the tour.
There was a told of 11 of us interns that went, so we slip into 2 groups and got to give our teams names. To make a funny, the other team called themselves "Angels of the night" lol and our group called ourselves "gypsies". Anyhow, this company does something amazing.
Have you ever heard of micro-financing? Any of you who are in business will know what this is. For those of you who do not, I'll give you a quick rundown. Micro-financing is basically what it says. It is financing, also known as loaning someone money and micro meaning small. So, in other words it is small loans. Most micro-financing has large interest rates and though some of us can afford to pay the interest rates to borrow money, these people out here cannot. Mwenge market is full of entrepreneurs who are trying to make a living off of wood carvings, making and selling jewelry, clothes, little shops, selling peanuts, selling charcoal...etc. These business minded people have no way of upgrading or getting ahead with their business without a loan, but they also cannot afford the interest charges for loans. You have to understand, they people are the poorest of the poor. They live off of less than a dollar a day. So, what investours does, is it offers these people interest free micro loans of about $200 USD and they pay it back in 3 months. This is the amazing part. They take us around in our group to two different business owners requesting a loan and we ask them questions about there family, the work, how much things cost, what they want to do with the loan, etc. After visiting both businesses we as a group choose which one we want to give the loan to. Then, all the money we paid for the tour is then given to them as their loan. We invest our money into their business. It is amazing. I strongly recommend you have a look at their website and consider donating if you can. I have pictures of both women we met.
The first woman we met was a charcoal seller. She had a little 6' X 6' makeshift room at the back of mwenge market made of scrap medal and wood where she sold her charcoal for 2500 a bucket. Her and a friend have been running the business and had received a previous loan and paid it back on time and with no problems. She has 8 kids, 6 grown and 2 are still young and in school. She wanted to get the loan so they could open up a new location by the bus stop which would generate more customers and income.[for those of you who do not know, the most commonly used thing for cooking IS charcoal out here] She was a very kind lady and excited to see us.
After getting some pictures with her we went to lunch at this awesome little place a few places down the row. The women were very friendly and the food was amazing! We have fried bananas with beans and sauce, this delicious tomato salad, and rice with stuff on it. got pictures too!! There was about 50 flies around us the entire time landing on our faces, food, hands, etc but the food was so good I hardly noticed.
Following lunch we went to the second business and met a women who was running a shop for the neighborhood and selling peanuts on the highway at night. She had just one daughter who I believe was 4 years old. We met in her home, a room with a bed and a few chairs where her, her husband and her daughter lived. We squished in there with little room to spare. She has never had a loan before and she needed the money so she could buy a license, allowing her to sell flour, rice, sugar, and other items that would get her more customers. She had a great story! Two years ago she started selling these little bags of peanuts for 100 TSH each and this year in February she had saved enough money to rent this shop and start selling items to the people in the neighborhood. She is doing good with the shop and has been saving 5,000 TSH every day. Every night from 4pm-9:30pm she sits out by the highway with her daughter and sells these peanuts. there were other children from families living in all the other rooms in the house and we got to wave to them and get pictures with them all.
At the end, we returned back to the investours office, choose the peanut lady, took a survey, got given an account on their website to track how the peanut lady was doing with her business and loan payments and then we did a little shopping.
This experience was amazing and I felt so humbled. A family of three renting a room smaller than my bedroom at home to live in. And she sells peanuts and has a tiny shop to provide for her family and try to survive. It felt so good to know that my money was going straight to this woman to help her improve her business.
It is too bad I cannot load these pictures to my blog, because I want you all to see these women and their businesses.
In case you are wondering what happens to the other woman, she is put into the next tour and if by 3 tours she is not chosen they give her the loan out of the organizations grant money, so have no fear... they take care of everyone. Each time someone does not get picked, the people at investours also goes in for a day and talks to them and trains them in how to have better business plans and ways to improve. It is an amazing program and they have investours in Mexico as well, so if any of you take a vacation to Dar es Salaam or Mexico... HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU GO FOR ONE! It is amazing!
After all that we came home and had dinner. It was such a long day, we were there for hours. We invited another intern who is from Holland out here doing some biology experiments with rice over to our house for a party. We played some awesome games, drank/munched and just chilled out til probably 2 or 3 in the morning.

AWESOME DAY! Sorry this is taking so long. My days are long, really busy and we lose power every night.

Investours Website: http://www.investours.org

Hit and Runs are Encouraged!

So I forgot to explain this interesting fact about Tanzania. In Tanzania they still believe in mob justice. For any of you who don't know what mob justice is... you can check out this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TvKi_j8Xk

As a security precaution if driving in Tanzania, if you do hit a pedestrian or another vehicle it is encouraged that you do not get out of your car even for the police, but rather immediately drive to the nearest police station and report it. I have not seen any mob justice full on, but while riding in a taxi with a few of the new interns on our way to the airport we saw what we thought was mob justice. There was a cluster of people and though I could not see clearly, it looked like there was fighting going on. Thankfully I was not involved or close enough to it. Mob justice is very common here and most of the time it is fatal. It stems from something as small as someone stealing a purse or something from a purse/pocket. Within seconds everyone around swarms the wrong-doer and beats them to the point of death.
This may seem inhuman and extreme, but it is a part of their culture. Is it more traditional than a corruption of people? I really could not say one way or the other. Thankfully I have no plans to steal from anyone, but happening upon mob justice in the streets as a bystander does not make you safe either. Innocent people can be attacked just from circumstance. I try to stay on alert and watch for unsafe activity while traveling throughout the city and I think we are in a fairly safe neighborhood.
So, that is why hit and runs are encouraged here in Tanzania. This clip is from Kenya, but it is just as much of an issue here as it is there.

Have a great day guys!
Moriah... or should I say Maria?