Just like a month ago when I left Uganda, I could write forever about all thats happened the past few days.
I think I have been the busiest person in Tanzania. i spent the past few days organizing the solar panel (which i am proud to say, i dont need any more donations unless a couple of small ones, we are almost at the full price of the panels!). the guy that runes the solar panel shop also runs an orphanage in town, so i have been trying to connect him with my nonprofit so he can get some english teaching volunteers for his orphanage. i think that he cut me a good deal on the solar panels because of this.
also, our taxi driver, mr. mumzari (whose voice sounds EXACTLY like louis armstrong) we invited him and his wife to dinner a couple of nights ago, she dressed to the nines it was wonderful. then she invited us for dinner at her house last night which was delish!
yesterday i didnt teach the women, instead we spent all morning making batiks. we did a few tie die ones. it was so cool watching them mix the die (it was like a science experiment we had to wear gloves and masks) and we wrapped thread around pinched areas of the cloth (this is really hard to explain) put the die on, then took the thread off, i have pictures of the whole thing and im sure they'll be worth a thousand words and more. it was so cool.
then today, my last day, i was really really excited because i had so many gifts to give them. i had made them each envelopes and each wrapped gifts. in each envelope was a letter from me with my home address, a paper with detailed instructions in swahili on how to open your email (thanks to gift and mr. lymo for the translation, they spent a day working on it for me, they work for i to i). i photocopied the instructions and wrote each person's username and password and full email address so that they could have their own directions on how to open the email in swahili, and personalized to their email address, because the whole email thing is really really confusing if youve never even used a computer ever before. and also in that envelope that each person got (i say person because its 7 women and 1 man, salim, my token male student in a woman's group) i included a card from a local internet cafe that is worth 10 hrs of internet. its like a stamp card where you buy 10 hours and they stamp it as you use each one. so this way i could prepay their internet for them. so each one has their own internet card worth 10 hours. get it? because i knew if i got them email addresses and didnt buy them internet they would never ever ever ever be able to check it so it woulda been pointless. so that was the three things in the envelope.
then i had a wrapped gift for each of them, inside each one was a new notebook of blank paper, a pen, and a primary 3 level english book so that finally, each could have their own. as ive said before, i brought them through primary 2 so primary 3 is the next book. i also left my old primary 2 book and a new primary 3 book for them to give to the next volunteer.
i cried the most today when they opened their gifts because they were so excited about the english books and the pens that you wouldnt believe it. you just wouldnt imagine people here so poor but so excited to learn. i started crying because they all held their books like little kids and were all saying to me "WE MISS YOU!!!" (meaning we WILL miss you. see im a bad teacher right). it was precious.
then we went to a neighbor's courtyard to do traditional dance. they wrapped a kanga around me (which was apparently the funniest thing ever to them) and then they did a bunch of dances an d sang in swahili, they kept singing my name in the middle of the songs too. they also sang one where they stood in a line and waved at me and pretended to cry saying "kwaheri teacher" which means goodbye teacher. it was so cute i took pictures and videotaped it. i felt so special.
then they made me dance with them which was hilarious to them also. i knew it was coming though, i could smell it from the minute they told me they were going to dance for me. but it was really fun:) and no i didnt allow any photographs of it to be taken.
then we went back and had lunch which was a full on feast of local food, delicious. though im not going to miss cooked unripened bananas. then they gave me gifts so sweet, they gave me one of the tiedye batiks i helped them make the day before! and two necklaces, and a gift for my mom (which i dont mean to ruin the surprise mom but you wont be able to picture it anyway) and its this really coool hand carved tea cup with a tea plate and a little spoon made out of a cow's horn. its really cool mom!!!
then all the ladies walked me into town and i hugged them goodbye, they try to be strong women but Mama Imakulata cried (the head of the women's group).
the day before, i had lunch at mama imakulata's and she told me they have had 7 volunteers, but all of them except for 2 have taught them nothing. she said it was because only 2 have been professional teachers at home, me and some other guy. such a compliment right?! she thinks i am a professional teacher!
the solar panel is definately getting installed next week and i will drop by the women's group next friday, the day before i fly out to the US, to take pictures of it and work out any kinks that mayve happened.
on top of everything else, lucy, holly, and i are trying to buy a wheelchair for this woman who sits all day in town begging, she has no shins just stumps at her knees, apparently she was hit by a truck. terrible huh. we're working with St Josephs hospital to get teh wheelchair, the nuns there say god will bless our lives forever if we do it, so i guess we should do it. ok sorry bad time to make a joke, seriously though this woman NEEDS a wheelchair this second.
anyway, thats all the time i have for now. tune in next week. haha! i fly to zanzibar tommorrow for My first hot shower IN EIGHT WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!! i'll be there for a week and fly back to Moshi next friday, only to fly back to the USA the day after. my projects here in africa are over, and i feel all grown up and so happy with the way everything has gone. i have been lucky as many people i know had bad projects (corruption, etc). i have been fortunate to have been exposed to great people here, eager to learn and teach me about themselves also.
much love,
suz
reminder about the donations, please if you could mail a check to me with the amount you had stated to the following address:
Suzy Price
2638 Prestwick Court
La Jolla, CA. 92037
USA
USA.....in case you forgot. :)
p.s. side story: the women turned on a tv (which they never do because electricity is so expensive they very rarely if ever are able to use it, hence the need for a solar panel, but i think they thought i would like it because im american) and it was al jazeera on, and a clip of bush talking about invading iran or something, and then ahmedenijad (no idea how to spell that, can only say it) talking about retailiation or something, and i was like crap, i dont want to go home turn this off!!!!! haha it was crap though, i think ignorance is definately bliss. turn that off and let me just sit here and eat my ugali.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
the latest on the solar panel
i have fronted the money myself today to get the ball rolling. the biggest thing that made it so expensive is securing the panel from theft, which is an ENORMOUS problem that cannot be underestimated (we had theives try to steal the one we had in uganda even while our night guard stood outside). so we will try to make it as secure as humanly possible.
the ordering of the parts has to take a couple days, building will begin right after, and should be completed mid-week next week. i will be in zanzibar next week and done with my project at the women's group, but i arrive back in Moshi that Friday to catch my flight home on Saturday night. I will go Friday afternoon and check out how the installation went, take pictures of the panel, and work out any problems that might've occured. there shoudnt be any problems with money as he has received all he needs.
It wound up costing much more than expected, 1,010,000 Tanzanian shillings to be exact.
Here is the cost breakdown for those donating to know:
Around 450,000 is for the panel itself
250,000 for the wiring
50,000 for labor
150,000 for stand
the remainder were boards for securing.
I have the receipt also if youd like to see it.
1,010,000 Tsh = $777 USD.
I am overjoyed to say that through your emails, already about $580 has been pledged to me.
Those of you who quoted me a number (or range of numbers) as to how much you plan on donating are included in that sum.
There are others of you who have told me you'd like to contribute, but haven't sent me a number yet. If you could e-mail me an amount you'd like to donate, that would be wonderful, anything you can give helps! We're almost at the goal:)
****************
I will be sending you pictures of the panel when its installed and anything else youd like to see is perfectly fine (including the receipt- I won't be offended!)
Much love and thanks,
Suz
the ordering of the parts has to take a couple days, building will begin right after, and should be completed mid-week next week. i will be in zanzibar next week and done with my project at the women's group, but i arrive back in Moshi that Friday to catch my flight home on Saturday night. I will go Friday afternoon and check out how the installation went, take pictures of the panel, and work out any problems that might've occured. there shoudnt be any problems with money as he has received all he needs.
It wound up costing much more than expected, 1,010,000 Tanzanian shillings to be exact.
Here is the cost breakdown for those donating to know:
Around 450,000 is for the panel itself
250,000 for the wiring
50,000 for labor
150,000 for stand
the remainder were boards for securing.
I have the receipt also if youd like to see it.
1,010,000 Tsh = $777 USD.
I am overjoyed to say that through your emails, already about $580 has been pledged to me.
Those of you who quoted me a number (or range of numbers) as to how much you plan on donating are included in that sum.
There are others of you who have told me you'd like to contribute, but haven't sent me a number yet. If you could e-mail me an amount you'd like to donate, that would be wonderful, anything you can give helps! We're almost at the goal:)
****************
I will be sending you pictures of the panel when its installed and anything else youd like to see is perfectly fine (including the receipt- I won't be offended!)
Much love and thanks,
Suz
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Solar Panels information
Here is the latest:
I am going out to the women's group to assess the site (aka the labor costs) today at 5pm with the guy that runs the solar panel shop. I plan to get them one solar panel that will supply light for three light bulbs and one socket with two plug holes (i SO don't know electricity terminology so sorry) that will be able to charge small appliances (aka cell phones although thats a bad example because they dont have cell phones sorry I am spacey right now)
I have blisters from running around Moshi in this 80 degree dry weather to make this happen. So far, here are the cost estimates:
555,000 tanzanian shillings for the solar panel I just mentioned ($450 USD)
500,000 tanzanian shilings for labor, the socket, and all the wiring and other necessary parts, is my overestimation of the remaining costs
The total should be around $600 usd but possibly closer to $700. I have to front the money NOW cuz I leave Moshi on Saturday morning, so if you are such an angel (as some of you have already offered, makes me so happy) and would like to help out, even the smallest amount, just e-mail me and give me a number if possible, although an estimate or range of your pledge-ability is completely great as well (I just need something to work with) and then we will go from there.
Mom can you help me figure out my bank account number to my Wells Fargo africa trip account? We might be able to arrange a direct deposit into that account. If not, the good old fashioned written checks are an option.
Thank you immensely. I want you to know of another possibility. My friends Holly and Lucy from the UK teach at a nursery school with 90 children crammed into a room the size of a bathroom -- I am NOT exaggerating, I didn't believe it until I saw it myself. 90 kids and can you believe how quickly they spread disease when they sit practically on top of eachother in a mud hut the size of a bathroom? They are building a new classroom for the kids, but the benches (timber costs) are astronomical, making the whole thing close to $1000 dollars. They have already raised a bunch through e-mails to home, but Holly cried her heart out last night fearing she just can't get together enough money in time to make it happen (she just needed people to pledge money to her as she will go into debt just paying for the whole thing at once). I gave her a bunch of money last night and I wanted to let you know that if for some reason I am pledged far more than enough for this solar panel, I would like, if it is okay with you, to give the remainder to build Tumaini Nursery's classroom. Chris will you explain to me why friends and family in the UK don't donate as much? I can't believe how hard its been for these girls to raise anything.
Anyway, all this to say, there are enough needs here to guarantee that every dollar you pledge will find itself 100% invested into the solar panel, or secondly, the classroom. Theres no bureaucracy to deal with:)
THANK YOU AGAIN for your support honestly I cant wait to take pictures and show you how the whole thing winds up looking. I am THRILLED to give them sustainable electricity, no bills necessary, and no damaging the environment.
Much love,
Suzy
Email me with any questions and inqueries of course: priceless5@gmail.com
I am going out to the women's group to assess the site (aka the labor costs) today at 5pm with the guy that runs the solar panel shop. I plan to get them one solar panel that will supply light for three light bulbs and one socket with two plug holes (i SO don't know electricity terminology so sorry) that will be able to charge small appliances (aka cell phones although thats a bad example because they dont have cell phones sorry I am spacey right now)
I have blisters from running around Moshi in this 80 degree dry weather to make this happen. So far, here are the cost estimates:
555,000 tanzanian shillings for the solar panel I just mentioned ($450 USD)
500,000 tanzanian shilings for labor, the socket, and all the wiring and other necessary parts, is my overestimation of the remaining costs
The total should be around $600 usd but possibly closer to $700. I have to front the money NOW cuz I leave Moshi on Saturday morning, so if you are such an angel (as some of you have already offered, makes me so happy) and would like to help out, even the smallest amount, just e-mail me and give me a number if possible, although an estimate or range of your pledge-ability is completely great as well (I just need something to work with) and then we will go from there.
Mom can you help me figure out my bank account number to my Wells Fargo africa trip account? We might be able to arrange a direct deposit into that account. If not, the good old fashioned written checks are an option.
Thank you immensely. I want you to know of another possibility. My friends Holly and Lucy from the UK teach at a nursery school with 90 children crammed into a room the size of a bathroom -- I am NOT exaggerating, I didn't believe it until I saw it myself. 90 kids and can you believe how quickly they spread disease when they sit practically on top of eachother in a mud hut the size of a bathroom? They are building a new classroom for the kids, but the benches (timber costs) are astronomical, making the whole thing close to $1000 dollars. They have already raised a bunch through e-mails to home, but Holly cried her heart out last night fearing she just can't get together enough money in time to make it happen (she just needed people to pledge money to her as she will go into debt just paying for the whole thing at once). I gave her a bunch of money last night and I wanted to let you know that if for some reason I am pledged far more than enough for this solar panel, I would like, if it is okay with you, to give the remainder to build Tumaini Nursery's classroom. Chris will you explain to me why friends and family in the UK don't donate as much? I can't believe how hard its been for these girls to raise anything.
Anyway, all this to say, there are enough needs here to guarantee that every dollar you pledge will find itself 100% invested into the solar panel, or secondly, the classroom. Theres no bureaucracy to deal with:)
THANK YOU AGAIN for your support honestly I cant wait to take pictures and show you how the whole thing winds up looking. I am THRILLED to give them sustainable electricity, no bills necessary, and no damaging the environment.
Much love,
Suzy
Email me with any questions and inqueries of course: priceless5@gmail.com
Monday, August 27, 2007
last but not least
i forgot to mention how incredibly thankful and encouraged i am by the emails of encouragement and support, messages on facebook etc., that i have received from you. they make me SO happy and encourage me tons. the one thing i am absolutely hands-down the most excited to come home for is my incredible friends, fiance and family. :)
butterflies in my stomach - and a call for YOUR money
hi everyone.
so its my last week on project in africa, and though im sure im excited to come home somewhere deep inside, i just can't feel it. i am really scared actually. im more scared to leave here than i was to come here. as i walked to project today along the dirt road over the railroad tracks, people saying Jambo and Mambo and Habari along the way (nobody walks by you without saying hello here), and the kids ran up and held my hand as I walked like everyday, and I passed the women with baskets of fruit on their heads and the women selling sweet bananas and stacked oranges on the side of the road -- i teared up and just seem to have this nauseas (no idea how to spell that) butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling about coming home. it doesnt help that everyone at home seems to be in a quarter life crisis (haha) because it seems that i must be bound for it too, once i get back and realize my life is in california, not a little village at the base of mount kilimanjaro, or a farming town in uganda. its really hard i even have to be cautious with my words right now as the tears come so easily. next saturday morning i fly to zanzibar with a few girls for a week, since my project ends friday and i have a week until my flight on the 8th. i cant even get excited about white sand beaches in zanzibar i'm so mentally preoccupied with coping with the loss of africa in my life. it feels selfish how much ive gained personally out of this trip.
but im so thankful at what ive learned about africa and myself, mostly things i was dead wrong about (assumptions we make about africa, and even our professors make), and mostly the hard time in uganda when we had no electricity, no running water, no shops or internet to wander in to -- outside of our teaching hours, we had hours and hours of free time. it was incredibly hard to have so much time to think, especially when you come from the fast-paced states. but thats how people live here, people are just content "hanging out" -- i cried a lot feeling like that was the longest month id ever live, but now as i look back, that free time was used talking to volunteers and to the community - deep conversations, political ones and personal ones. humans are animals underneath it all (just so you know), and i somehow believe that we were designed more for a life like that than a life of shopping and internet. i wouldnt say their life is better in that farming village in uganda than at home, because i know saying that would be an injustice as many struggle to pay their school fees and even to survive when malaria and AIDs ravages areas, but there are things that are better here just as there are things that are worse.
i bought the women's group the internet cards (10 hour cards for each one of them) and offered to sponsor two children of theirs (wherever there is a need) - which brings me to my next point.
******
i have a call for help and an idea im toying with. i need to go check the price and installation fees, but i am toying with the idea of buying the women's group one or two solar panels. first and foremost i need to talk to them about it and see how they feel, i need to weigh the costs also. as i see it now, this way they will have electricity (their village doesn't have any) and they wont have to pay the bills for it, so its sustainable. of course it wont work well in the rainy season, but we had a couple solar panels on our roof at teach inn and the electricity was almost always available to light our few lightbulbs even when it was cloudy/rainy. i have seen solar panels in a shop in town, so im going to go see the price. i honestly have NO idea how much they cost so ill have to see.
Rumor has it a lot of people have been reading my blog, and this is your chance to participate if you would like to:). I can probably afford a solar panel on my own (I think) but I thought if you feel you'd like to help pay for it also, please email me at priceless5@gmail.com. Unlike many nonprofits, i can promise you that for every dollar you donate, the entire dollar will go to the women's group's solar panel:). I don't need much money i think, and I dont know the amount yet. Just e-mail me if youre interested. Sounds weird but I dont want too much money, if I buy them more than a panel or two it will just re-inforce the "Mzungu give me money" stereotype, and it will up the chance that word will spread about the panels and they will get robbed from the women's group. I am very wary of people that raise $12,000 to just give to the communities here - the same communities that remain completely uneducated about accounting and banking - that does NOT promote sustainable development. Anyway, e-mail me a quick line if you are interested! I'm off to go check on the prices of solar panels and installation:)
much love,
suz
so its my last week on project in africa, and though im sure im excited to come home somewhere deep inside, i just can't feel it. i am really scared actually. im more scared to leave here than i was to come here. as i walked to project today along the dirt road over the railroad tracks, people saying Jambo and Mambo and Habari along the way (nobody walks by you without saying hello here), and the kids ran up and held my hand as I walked like everyday, and I passed the women with baskets of fruit on their heads and the women selling sweet bananas and stacked oranges on the side of the road -- i teared up and just seem to have this nauseas (no idea how to spell that) butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling about coming home. it doesnt help that everyone at home seems to be in a quarter life crisis (haha) because it seems that i must be bound for it too, once i get back and realize my life is in california, not a little village at the base of mount kilimanjaro, or a farming town in uganda. its really hard i even have to be cautious with my words right now as the tears come so easily. next saturday morning i fly to zanzibar with a few girls for a week, since my project ends friday and i have a week until my flight on the 8th. i cant even get excited about white sand beaches in zanzibar i'm so mentally preoccupied with coping with the loss of africa in my life. it feels selfish how much ive gained personally out of this trip.
but im so thankful at what ive learned about africa and myself, mostly things i was dead wrong about (assumptions we make about africa, and even our professors make), and mostly the hard time in uganda when we had no electricity, no running water, no shops or internet to wander in to -- outside of our teaching hours, we had hours and hours of free time. it was incredibly hard to have so much time to think, especially when you come from the fast-paced states. but thats how people live here, people are just content "hanging out" -- i cried a lot feeling like that was the longest month id ever live, but now as i look back, that free time was used talking to volunteers and to the community - deep conversations, political ones and personal ones. humans are animals underneath it all (just so you know), and i somehow believe that we were designed more for a life like that than a life of shopping and internet. i wouldnt say their life is better in that farming village in uganda than at home, because i know saying that would be an injustice as many struggle to pay their school fees and even to survive when malaria and AIDs ravages areas, but there are things that are better here just as there are things that are worse.
i bought the women's group the internet cards (10 hour cards for each one of them) and offered to sponsor two children of theirs (wherever there is a need) - which brings me to my next point.
******
i have a call for help and an idea im toying with. i need to go check the price and installation fees, but i am toying with the idea of buying the women's group one or two solar panels. first and foremost i need to talk to them about it and see how they feel, i need to weigh the costs also. as i see it now, this way they will have electricity (their village doesn't have any) and they wont have to pay the bills for it, so its sustainable. of course it wont work well in the rainy season, but we had a couple solar panels on our roof at teach inn and the electricity was almost always available to light our few lightbulbs even when it was cloudy/rainy. i have seen solar panels in a shop in town, so im going to go see the price. i honestly have NO idea how much they cost so ill have to see.
Rumor has it a lot of people have been reading my blog, and this is your chance to participate if you would like to:). I can probably afford a solar panel on my own (I think) but I thought if you feel you'd like to help pay for it also, please email me at priceless5@gmail.com. Unlike many nonprofits, i can promise you that for every dollar you donate, the entire dollar will go to the women's group's solar panel:). I don't need much money i think, and I dont know the amount yet. Just e-mail me if youre interested. Sounds weird but I dont want too much money, if I buy them more than a panel or two it will just re-inforce the "Mzungu give me money" stereotype, and it will up the chance that word will spread about the panels and they will get robbed from the women's group. I am very wary of people that raise $12,000 to just give to the communities here - the same communities that remain completely uneducated about accounting and banking - that does NOT promote sustainable development. Anyway, e-mail me a quick line if you are interested! I'm off to go check on the prices of solar panels and installation:)
much love,
suz
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
email for the women!:)
i just set up the women's group e-mail addresses. i havnt really been able to decide what to give them that would be practical and lasting so i decided to get them e-mail accounts on gmail which i just made for all of them, and im going to buy each one of them a 12 hour card to a local internet cafe (theres only 8 women in the group, actually 7 women and 1 man, so one for each). And i am going to get them Primary level 3 English books, as i'm almost done teaching them Primary 2, but ive been photocopying out of the p2 book so they dont have their own. So they will each have an email account, a primary 3 book for whoever teaches them next, a new blank notebook of lined paper, some pens, and 12 hours internet at an internet cafe. i might offer to sponsor some of their kids also i juts need to find out what the needs are at the moment.
its august 22 today so that's seventeen days til i'm on a plane back home! and only nine til zanzibar (which is where im spending my last week here in africa). im so excited to come home.
i think ive grown a lot more cynical about progress in africa since i came here to tanzania.... i cant help it. i get irritated when nonprofits come here and hand out toys or give kids crayons when those kids cant pay their school fees which i think is the primary concern. i also cant stand the amount of people, particularly men here, in the community who just stand around all day, no matter what day of the week it is, doing nothing. its this phrase in swahili, "pole pole" which is very much part of the culture and attitude here, it means "slowly slowly". everything is done at a pace so slow that progress seems impossible. and then those same guys are raising their kids to sit there and shout "mzungu give me money!" when we walk by. i wish i could say to the men that just sit there, in swahili, "its tuesday morning go out and work or sell, do something dont just sit there and ask me for money!!!!!!!!!!!" i just think in order for the burden of poverty to be alleviated, the attitude and desire for it has to start here. i saw a picture of madonna in some magazine last week wearing a t-shirt that had an image of africa and a peace sign, and it said it was for some nonprofit aiming to end poverty in africa by 2020. I cant help but laugh at that. end poverty in thirteen years when pole pole is the attitude here and the west comes out and gives crayons and takes pictures before paying for the kid's education????? i'm sorry i sound so cynical but aiming to "end poverty" and put a date on it is the most ludicrous goal ive ever heard. Its like in What About Bob. Babysteps. First things first, there needs to be an attitude makeover here. The bummer is, there are definately people here who desire something more for themselves and their country and are willing to work for it, but just cant make it happen, because for every one of them, there are 100 people with the lazy "pole pole" and "mzungu give me money" attitude. thats the biggest crime, is that committed by the lazy people against the few who want something more. why cant everyone just work together !!!!!!!!!!
if you havent been able to tell in the blogs, i have not grown as emotionally attached to my project in tanzania as in uganda. i felt the people i met in my village in uganda wanted education and growth, and never stood there and asked us to throw money at them, unless it was to pay school fees. i think this attitude of "mzungu give me money" here in moshi and in the major african cities stems from the habit the West had of "throwing money at the African problem" and just giving so much aid and NEVER accounting for where it dropped or ended up. it made africans see the West as having so much money that they could just throw it at african countries without noticing or caring whether it was the dictator that got all the money and all the people. the fact that every white person here seems to be working under the auspices of some organization that just hands out money freely doesnt do much to change the african's view. maybe their view that we should just hand them money has originated for a very legitamite reason. im cynical because i cant see how it can be undone at this point. hahahaha especially not in 13 years.
the aid organizations that seem to be doing right are generally the medical ones, red cross, doctors without borders, direct relief, and other organizations aiming to alleviate the disease burden here and educate on sanitation. i have nothing but praise for most of those organizations. also, ive been VERY impressed by one particular loosely religious organization, which i was surprised by: World Vision. in my tiny remote vilage of nyakasiru in uganda, World Vision had built their school and outfitted it with everything from chairs to chalkboards, had built their village's clean water supply, and set up the entire sanitary water system that served the village and those around it. I was extremely impressed by that work and i would definately consider donating to them after what i'd seen.
however, there is a lot of bureaucracy in world vision and many of these behemouth nonprofits on the ground. god only knows how much of your dollar will end up in that building. especially with the level of corruption at the local level here.
but bottom line, i think its the attitude thats the problem. this whole "pole pole" thing sounds nice to us who live lives that are a bit too fast paced, but it will get them nowhere, realistically. theyve got to work for more than 4 hours a day. this is by no means a blanket statement, because i know sooo many here who work harder than anyone at home. aka warren in uganda who e-mailed you dad, that guy works like 5 jobs that each are very noble, and supports 9 children, none of which are his. Amazing when you meet people like that. also, Rahima, the teacher at a nearby nursery school next to my women's group here, is amazing. she teaches 40 kids and only 3 of them pay school fees, and her pay is from the school fees. she can barely even afford rent at her school (which is really cheap) but she does it all out of a labor of love. shes the happiest woman you'll ever meet. and then i found out that rahima's mother was raped and she was the product of it, and she was rejected her whole life by her mother and raised by a grandmother and sexually abused by an uncle. shes a champion and most people are champions here in some way, because of the prevalence of disease and desperation from poverty. so though i'm cynical, those few characters will keep me hopeful. even the guys that nag me (and annoy the heck out of me) on the street to pay an arm and a leg for some cheap piece of tourist jewelry they're selling, they keep me hopeful too. because at least they too are trying to make a buck instead of sitting around in the street.
-suz
its august 22 today so that's seventeen days til i'm on a plane back home! and only nine til zanzibar (which is where im spending my last week here in africa). im so excited to come home.
i think ive grown a lot more cynical about progress in africa since i came here to tanzania.... i cant help it. i get irritated when nonprofits come here and hand out toys or give kids crayons when those kids cant pay their school fees which i think is the primary concern. i also cant stand the amount of people, particularly men here, in the community who just stand around all day, no matter what day of the week it is, doing nothing. its this phrase in swahili, "pole pole" which is very much part of the culture and attitude here, it means "slowly slowly". everything is done at a pace so slow that progress seems impossible. and then those same guys are raising their kids to sit there and shout "mzungu give me money!" when we walk by. i wish i could say to the men that just sit there, in swahili, "its tuesday morning go out and work or sell, do something dont just sit there and ask me for money!!!!!!!!!!!" i just think in order for the burden of poverty to be alleviated, the attitude and desire for it has to start here. i saw a picture of madonna in some magazine last week wearing a t-shirt that had an image of africa and a peace sign, and it said it was for some nonprofit aiming to end poverty in africa by 2020. I cant help but laugh at that. end poverty in thirteen years when pole pole is the attitude here and the west comes out and gives crayons and takes pictures before paying for the kid's education????? i'm sorry i sound so cynical but aiming to "end poverty" and put a date on it is the most ludicrous goal ive ever heard. Its like in What About Bob. Babysteps. First things first, there needs to be an attitude makeover here. The bummer is, there are definately people here who desire something more for themselves and their country and are willing to work for it, but just cant make it happen, because for every one of them, there are 100 people with the lazy "pole pole" and "mzungu give me money" attitude. thats the biggest crime, is that committed by the lazy people against the few who want something more. why cant everyone just work together !!!!!!!!!!
if you havent been able to tell in the blogs, i have not grown as emotionally attached to my project in tanzania as in uganda. i felt the people i met in my village in uganda wanted education and growth, and never stood there and asked us to throw money at them, unless it was to pay school fees. i think this attitude of "mzungu give me money" here in moshi and in the major african cities stems from the habit the West had of "throwing money at the African problem" and just giving so much aid and NEVER accounting for where it dropped or ended up. it made africans see the West as having so much money that they could just throw it at african countries without noticing or caring whether it was the dictator that got all the money and all the people. the fact that every white person here seems to be working under the auspices of some organization that just hands out money freely doesnt do much to change the african's view. maybe their view that we should just hand them money has originated for a very legitamite reason. im cynical because i cant see how it can be undone at this point. hahahaha especially not in 13 years.
the aid organizations that seem to be doing right are generally the medical ones, red cross, doctors without borders, direct relief, and other organizations aiming to alleviate the disease burden here and educate on sanitation. i have nothing but praise for most of those organizations. also, ive been VERY impressed by one particular loosely religious organization, which i was surprised by: World Vision. in my tiny remote vilage of nyakasiru in uganda, World Vision had built their school and outfitted it with everything from chairs to chalkboards, had built their village's clean water supply, and set up the entire sanitary water system that served the village and those around it. I was extremely impressed by that work and i would definately consider donating to them after what i'd seen.
however, there is a lot of bureaucracy in world vision and many of these behemouth nonprofits on the ground. god only knows how much of your dollar will end up in that building. especially with the level of corruption at the local level here.
but bottom line, i think its the attitude thats the problem. this whole "pole pole" thing sounds nice to us who live lives that are a bit too fast paced, but it will get them nowhere, realistically. theyve got to work for more than 4 hours a day. this is by no means a blanket statement, because i know sooo many here who work harder than anyone at home. aka warren in uganda who e-mailed you dad, that guy works like 5 jobs that each are very noble, and supports 9 children, none of which are his. Amazing when you meet people like that. also, Rahima, the teacher at a nearby nursery school next to my women's group here, is amazing. she teaches 40 kids and only 3 of them pay school fees, and her pay is from the school fees. she can barely even afford rent at her school (which is really cheap) but she does it all out of a labor of love. shes the happiest woman you'll ever meet. and then i found out that rahima's mother was raped and she was the product of it, and she was rejected her whole life by her mother and raised by a grandmother and sexually abused by an uncle. shes a champion and most people are champions here in some way, because of the prevalence of disease and desperation from poverty. so though i'm cynical, those few characters will keep me hopeful. even the guys that nag me (and annoy the heck out of me) on the street to pay an arm and a leg for some cheap piece of tourist jewelry they're selling, they keep me hopeful too. because at least they too are trying to make a buck instead of sitting around in the street.
-suz
Sunday, August 19, 2007
excellent timing. :)
k i am so in awe of the timing of this picture that Hillary took i had to share it. i think u can click on it to see it bigger my facial expression is epic. we jumped off marangu falls yesterday (only 30 feet, but the water was freezing cuz the river comes stright of kilimanjaro). holly jumped then she came up to the surface and screamed 'ouch' cuz she landed funny so i said..."No way in hell am i going to jump" and i started walking away. and then i turned around suddenly and said YES I AM and jumped right that instant. you just cant think too much can you:)
ok i wont get too cheesy but i think the photo is indicative of this time in my life. dont i look free as a bird!!! hehe
ok i wont get too cheesy but i think the photo is indicative of this time in my life. dont i look free as a bird!!! hehe
Saturday, August 18, 2007
eggberta.
ive not got anything big to say but maybe a couple stories here and there.
we have these five dogs (mom and dad and three puppies) that live at the volunteer house (theyre the caretaker's dogs) and we always hear them yelping and fighting in the night, theyre really cute though. there are lots of muts around here of course, as theres not any spaying and neutering going on. anyway yesterday on the way to class one of the volunteers, Vi, saw a tiny little dark brown (rotwelier colored) puppy underneeath a bush in our house, and it was shaking. it looked seconds away from death. so vi and lisa and i looked at it, lisa picked it up and it was shaking and all curled up. then i turned it over to look at its stomach for ticks and there were literally hundreds of fleas on its belly eating the little puppy alive. so we got flea bath stuff and gave it a bath and now shes perky as can be and so cute, must be only a few weeks old. its strange however because we havnt seen any dogs that have her coloring (as in we havent seen her parents) or the rest of the litter she came from (there must be more, though they mightve died already). it was so sad just like this little orphan pup dying in our yard. so we saved it and named it Eggberta. we're going to try to nurse her back to health, i only hope future volunteers will help look after her too but im sure they will. i wish i could take her home, but of course the quarantine the shots, etc.
another little story thats really funny. so i did an impromptu geography lesson for the women's group yesterday using a world map i found and didnt prepare anything so i just started talking about the continents and oceans and the equator and the countries that border tanzania. and then accidently i started talking about how the earth is getting warmer at the equator. which then brought me into a few sentences on global warming, to which they looked at me like i was absolutely nuts. i laughed at myself as i left because i remember distinctly saying something like "Because of the car exhaust in Los Angeles, it might get hotter in Tanzania". i can just imagine after i left how they probably were like "what the hell was that lesson about?!" hmmm well some lessons are hits and some are misses. this is why i need to prepare. funny though huh.
another tidbit. last night we went out to a very popular bar in town Pub Alberto. at our volunteer house we have full on maasai guards guarding the house (you know with the crazy stretched out ear lobes and jewelry). but somehow we convinced two of them to come to pub alberto with us, haha, of course we had to pay the cover charge and taxi for them. it was probably top ten funniest things ive seen in my life watching the security guards there pat us all down for weapons, and then pat the maasai down in their traditional gear with their full on machetes and spears tucked in to their skirts. they just handed them to the guy at the door to hold while they were inside. the maasai are so great they are SUCH happy wonderful people. we had so much fun with them . it was cute we asked them what they wanted to drink and they just said "COCA COLA!!!!!" like little kids, because you see coke is like a delicacy here. they were just hanging out happy as clams in their full on maasai gear with us at the bar, drinking their cokes. it was awesome im so glad we brought them out, i think they had an amaazing time. i know we did too. that was probably one of their only times ever being out at a pub, if at all!
last story, im really jaded about the corruption ive witnessed here, and with the volunteer company of i-to-i. i could go on about it forever, but NONE of my projects or anyone's projects sees a dime of money, not clean water for the schools or funds to even upkeep the classrooms. i to i makes pure profit off us volunteers. i thought they would use my money to support my projects but ive been astounded and how much i've had to dole out of my own money for the people here, instead of i-to-i using the money i paid them to do so. i am glad i went on my first volunteer trip with i to i because they hold your hand, but now that i know the ropes however, im going to go directly to a school or nonprofit to help. for example, the local guy here Heriel who works for i-to-i in Moshi is very very nice but driven by greed. listen to this story. so his job (with i to i) is probably one of the best jobs in Moshi for pay (even though i to i unethically pays them a couple bucks a day and never gives them days off). he began running a janky tour and safari company on the side, writing off the taxes as a nonprofit while he pockets the money (i think). so when we planned our safari, we went with another guy in town Pawa Rafiki who gave us the best deal for our money. When heriel found out, he yelled at me and said we're not allowed to go. we all kinda laughed and were like "we came here voluntarily, we paid to be here, and we're adults. we're going" and we went. Anyway THEN we had a house meeting, all the volunteers, and Heriels first words were "From now on, nobody is allowed to go on tours or safaris with any company at all except mine because otherwise we at i-to-i will be in trouble if something bad happens to you." at this point there was laughter and a huge uproar in the room. all of us were bickering with him about it and i was feeling ballsy enough to say to him "youre trying to force us naive volunteers to go with you at a higher price so you can monopolize the tourist industry in moshi, its not fair to the other companies also trying to survive and its not fair because they are often willing to offer us more competitive prices and better service." he BLEW UP when i said monopolize but what the hell, it was true. THEN he finally conceded and said "Ok fine, you can go with other tourist companies" (as if he has the right to tell us that anyway) then he said "but they must pay me a fee for using one of the i-to-i volunteers." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? pay Heriel a FEE because we're from i to i where he works?????? At this point Holly, another volunteer shes really funny, yelled "What is this, rent-a-volunteer?" it was so funny. But anyway, we yelled at him for that and in the end we realized he has no jurisdiction over what we do at all, he wont be able to charge companies a fee for taking us volunteers on safari, no company would pay him that. i hate when people here talk to us like we're idiots who just hand out money blindly. its one thing to ask for money when i have built a relationship with a person, but the whole "mzungu give me money" thing i hear on the way to school 100 times a day is the most frustrating sentence ive ever heard. FYI, i am so passionately anti-Heriel that every trip we are going on is going to be with other tour companies than his, and we are going to tell the next generation of volunteers to go with other tourist companies as well and boycott heriels. it sounds bad but come on heriel, we come from capatilist countries we know what youre trying to do were not going to be like "okay we have to do everything with heriel's company" my god hes like a dictator. end of rant! i hope you understood that story, if not ill just explain it later when i get back. it does make me irate for obvious reasons. One dollar can go SO FAR here and yet so many of them get caught up in the i-to-i bureaucracy. like for example, i-to-i gives us free t-shirts for volunttering. many of the kids here dont have shirts. why didnt those shirts go to them!??! Us volunteers are all equally jaded about it, but its true that if you want to work in the third world, the first think you have to cope with is the relevance of corruption in everything you do.
~suz
we have these five dogs (mom and dad and three puppies) that live at the volunteer house (theyre the caretaker's dogs) and we always hear them yelping and fighting in the night, theyre really cute though. there are lots of muts around here of course, as theres not any spaying and neutering going on. anyway yesterday on the way to class one of the volunteers, Vi, saw a tiny little dark brown (rotwelier colored) puppy underneeath a bush in our house, and it was shaking. it looked seconds away from death. so vi and lisa and i looked at it, lisa picked it up and it was shaking and all curled up. then i turned it over to look at its stomach for ticks and there were literally hundreds of fleas on its belly eating the little puppy alive. so we got flea bath stuff and gave it a bath and now shes perky as can be and so cute, must be only a few weeks old. its strange however because we havnt seen any dogs that have her coloring (as in we havent seen her parents) or the rest of the litter she came from (there must be more, though they mightve died already). it was so sad just like this little orphan pup dying in our yard. so we saved it and named it Eggberta. we're going to try to nurse her back to health, i only hope future volunteers will help look after her too but im sure they will. i wish i could take her home, but of course the quarantine the shots, etc.
another little story thats really funny. so i did an impromptu geography lesson for the women's group yesterday using a world map i found and didnt prepare anything so i just started talking about the continents and oceans and the equator and the countries that border tanzania. and then accidently i started talking about how the earth is getting warmer at the equator. which then brought me into a few sentences on global warming, to which they looked at me like i was absolutely nuts. i laughed at myself as i left because i remember distinctly saying something like "Because of the car exhaust in Los Angeles, it might get hotter in Tanzania". i can just imagine after i left how they probably were like "what the hell was that lesson about?!" hmmm well some lessons are hits and some are misses. this is why i need to prepare. funny though huh.
another tidbit. last night we went out to a very popular bar in town Pub Alberto. at our volunteer house we have full on maasai guards guarding the house (you know with the crazy stretched out ear lobes and jewelry). but somehow we convinced two of them to come to pub alberto with us, haha, of course we had to pay the cover charge and taxi for them. it was probably top ten funniest things ive seen in my life watching the security guards there pat us all down for weapons, and then pat the maasai down in their traditional gear with their full on machetes and spears tucked in to their skirts. they just handed them to the guy at the door to hold while they were inside. the maasai are so great they are SUCH happy wonderful people. we had so much fun with them . it was cute we asked them what they wanted to drink and they just said "COCA COLA!!!!!" like little kids, because you see coke is like a delicacy here. they were just hanging out happy as clams in their full on maasai gear with us at the bar, drinking their cokes. it was awesome im so glad we brought them out, i think they had an amaazing time. i know we did too. that was probably one of their only times ever being out at a pub, if at all!
last story, im really jaded about the corruption ive witnessed here, and with the volunteer company of i-to-i. i could go on about it forever, but NONE of my projects or anyone's projects sees a dime of money, not clean water for the schools or funds to even upkeep the classrooms. i to i makes pure profit off us volunteers. i thought they would use my money to support my projects but ive been astounded and how much i've had to dole out of my own money for the people here, instead of i-to-i using the money i paid them to do so. i am glad i went on my first volunteer trip with i to i because they hold your hand, but now that i know the ropes however, im going to go directly to a school or nonprofit to help. for example, the local guy here Heriel who works for i-to-i in Moshi is very very nice but driven by greed. listen to this story. so his job (with i to i) is probably one of the best jobs in Moshi for pay (even though i to i unethically pays them a couple bucks a day and never gives them days off). he began running a janky tour and safari company on the side, writing off the taxes as a nonprofit while he pockets the money (i think). so when we planned our safari, we went with another guy in town Pawa Rafiki who gave us the best deal for our money. When heriel found out, he yelled at me and said we're not allowed to go. we all kinda laughed and were like "we came here voluntarily, we paid to be here, and we're adults. we're going" and we went. Anyway THEN we had a house meeting, all the volunteers, and Heriels first words were "From now on, nobody is allowed to go on tours or safaris with any company at all except mine because otherwise we at i-to-i will be in trouble if something bad happens to you." at this point there was laughter and a huge uproar in the room. all of us were bickering with him about it and i was feeling ballsy enough to say to him "youre trying to force us naive volunteers to go with you at a higher price so you can monopolize the tourist industry in moshi, its not fair to the other companies also trying to survive and its not fair because they are often willing to offer us more competitive prices and better service." he BLEW UP when i said monopolize but what the hell, it was true. THEN he finally conceded and said "Ok fine, you can go with other tourist companies" (as if he has the right to tell us that anyway) then he said "but they must pay me a fee for using one of the i-to-i volunteers." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? pay Heriel a FEE because we're from i to i where he works?????? At this point Holly, another volunteer shes really funny, yelled "What is this, rent-a-volunteer?" it was so funny. But anyway, we yelled at him for that and in the end we realized he has no jurisdiction over what we do at all, he wont be able to charge companies a fee for taking us volunteers on safari, no company would pay him that. i hate when people here talk to us like we're idiots who just hand out money blindly. its one thing to ask for money when i have built a relationship with a person, but the whole "mzungu give me money" thing i hear on the way to school 100 times a day is the most frustrating sentence ive ever heard. FYI, i am so passionately anti-Heriel that every trip we are going on is going to be with other tour companies than his, and we are going to tell the next generation of volunteers to go with other tourist companies as well and boycott heriels. it sounds bad but come on heriel, we come from capatilist countries we know what youre trying to do were not going to be like "okay we have to do everything with heriel's company" my god hes like a dictator. end of rant! i hope you understood that story, if not ill just explain it later when i get back. it does make me irate for obvious reasons. One dollar can go SO FAR here and yet so many of them get caught up in the i-to-i bureaucracy. like for example, i-to-i gives us free t-shirts for volunttering. many of the kids here dont have shirts. why didnt those shirts go to them!??! Us volunteers are all equally jaded about it, but its true that if you want to work in the third world, the first think you have to cope with is the relevance of corruption in everything you do.
~suz
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
safari & moshi update
-------- about the safari:
so i went on safari this weekend it was amazing. i went with five other girls (one of which is a woman hillary whos in her forties so i feel weird saying 'girl'). we had so much fun. first we went to lake manyara, and our safari land cruiser had like removable panels on the roof so you could basically sit on the roof the whole time and zubi, our 21 year old rather insane at driving driver, let us just sit up there as he drove through the national parks which im not sure if he was supposed to do, but we LOVED sitting up there. anyway first we went to Lake Manyara - a smaller national park - and my god there are so many baboons in and outside of the park i have the answer to Andrew's question: what there is TOO MANY of and you just get downright sick of are Baboons in tanzania. they are actually considered vermin here. theyre still cute but man, we'd come across hordes of like 100+ of them. 'planet of the apes'. anyway manyara was gorgeous, we saw girraffes and flamingoes and lots of cool things - impalas, vervet monkeys, etc. then that night we stayed at a campground in a tent and then drove to the serengeti the next morning.
no one told us the drive to the serengeti was going to be bad, let alone THAT bad. we had the windows down (obviously no AC) and every time a car drove by, a dust cloud came in. we got so dirty just from the car ride. and that road puts any road in Baja to SHAME. it was washboard the entire way. if i had sung in one note for 9 hours straight it wouldve been vibrato the whole way. it was so incredibly bouncy and miserable we had to sing songs from Grease and Lion King to distract ourselves. thats when you know youre in desperate times. anyway so we got in to the serengeti and got a gorgeous view of the plains atop a small hill that sortof marks the park enterance. the serengeti plains are so vast its hard to describe its just one of those things you have to see for yourself. its incredible. just as you see it on the nature channel, with the acacia trees and we were there in the dry season ( when all the animals flee north to the maasai mara in kenya ) and there were still animals EVERYWHERE. SOOOO many thomsons gazelles i mean hordes of 50 of them every quarter of a mile. and girraffes just walking across the plains, and elephants. we saw also a cheetah VERY close up that afternoon, we got incredibly lucky as we were one of two cars that got to see it before it fled. i got some pictures but theyre a bit blurry (you need a really nice camera if you go on safari). we saw lions also, we even watched two female lions stalk a bunch of thompsons gazelles -- they didnt succeed but it was amazing nonetheless.
that night we camped in the middle of the serengeti with no fences to block us from animals and with plenty of warnings about animals just coming in to the campgrounds. sure enough that night we heard hyenas super close to the tents and i shared a tent with this hilarious british girl holly whom i love the most out of the volunteers here, and we got woken up by what sounded like two warthogs fighting RIGHT outside our tent. i almost died of fear. it was pumba from the lion king!!!!haha
by the way the lion king is so lame cuz they just used the swahili words for every animal. simba means lion, pumba means warthog, etc. etc.
needless to say the serengeti was awesome, id like to go back someday with matt in the spring to see the wildebeest migration.
then we drove back and camped at the ngorongoro crater (biggest volcanic crater in the world; 600 something km wide or something maybe thats square kilometers who knows i dont remember). i got really sick (physically sick) and almost threw up i think it was the sudden altitude climb and car sickness. we slept on the crater rim at a campsite and all along the safari my biggest fear was an elephant stepping on our tent (ive heard horror stories) and sure enough i woke up in the morning to hear there was an elephant walking around our campground between tents the night before. THEN flash forward that afternoon we went back to the camp ground and there he was, this elephant just chillin in the middle of the tents! i couldve walked right up to him! it was soooo bizarre.
the crater was gorgeous, we got extremely lucky and got to see the black rhinocerous of which there are something like 16 left in East Africa (and the white rhinocerous is now extinct in east africa, theyre only in south africa now). we saw two of them. they look so prehistoric.
oh i failed to mention we all bought cheesy safari hats before the trip. i bartered with the guy and got like 9 for just under a dollar each. they have giant drawings of Kilimanjaro on them and are so cheesy. we wore them with pride~ my god the american tourists and their safari gear is ridiculous. i mean we were kidding but these people are SERIOUS when they wear their gear.
i was telling mom that at one point in the crater, as we were sitting on the roof of our car, this was the scene: hundreds of flamingos on the water, a long line of hundreds of wildebeest and zebras marching to the waters edge to drink, a female and male ostrich, several black and white cranes (the big ones with the pretty orange fray on their head, like birds of paradise flowers), and two rhinos along the waters edge. All in one scene. you have to pinch yourself and say "this isnt the zoo or the wild animal park..this is REAL" haha. really though~ it was amazing.
----------- onto moshi
the womens group has been great and rewarding but very hard work. they catch on so much faster than kids, i have to jam pack the lessons to keep up with them, so i have to prepare lots. i am teaching afternoon classes to them on Tues/Thurs. the last two optional afternoon classes were about business, and i taught them vocab like "profit, buying, loaning, interest" etc. and how to use them in language. todays lesson on business went really well i could tell they were excited.
the women's group also made me two long skirts --- they took my measurements and i picked the fabrics out of the ones they had and they made them. im wearing one but i dont know how it looks cuz i havnt seen a mirror yet, but it seems to fit well! it cost me 10,000 shillings plus 5,000 for labor in each skirt, which amounts to like $20 usd for two skirts that were handmade with lining, zippers and everything custom fit to ME!!! awesome huh?~??
also the other volunteers and the volunteer house has been really nice. the food is really greasy cuz the cooks think thats how we westerners like it. so we are all getting fat i think. its okay though cuz i think i mustve lost at least 10 pounds in uganda so it all evens out in the end. also its super hot here. we are going to a hotel pool tomorrow after we teach in the morning at our various projects (us volunteers),. it costs like 3,000 shillings to hang out at a really nice hotel pool all day (USD 1.50).
lastly i am not climbing kili as you know, and i am pretty sure i'll be able to get the cheap flights to zanzibar so i likely will be going there instead of trying to come home early. i am going to spend the money i was going to use for Kili paying for zanzibar, and im also going to use it to buy a suitcase and TONS of crafts here (paintings, wood carvings, etc) to decorate me and matt's future house in. its so cheap and i honestly could spend 300 USD on stuff here that wouldve cost me 3,000 USD at home, easily. plus i know its authentic here and it supports the local economy. so i'll have fun shopping after school each day. so thats that! i'll update more later this week.
much love,
suz:)
so i went on safari this weekend it was amazing. i went with five other girls (one of which is a woman hillary whos in her forties so i feel weird saying 'girl'). we had so much fun. first we went to lake manyara, and our safari land cruiser had like removable panels on the roof so you could basically sit on the roof the whole time and zubi, our 21 year old rather insane at driving driver, let us just sit up there as he drove through the national parks which im not sure if he was supposed to do, but we LOVED sitting up there. anyway first we went to Lake Manyara - a smaller national park - and my god there are so many baboons in and outside of the park i have the answer to Andrew's question: what there is TOO MANY of and you just get downright sick of are Baboons in tanzania. they are actually considered vermin here. theyre still cute but man, we'd come across hordes of like 100+ of them. 'planet of the apes'. anyway manyara was gorgeous, we saw girraffes and flamingoes and lots of cool things - impalas, vervet monkeys, etc. then that night we stayed at a campground in a tent and then drove to the serengeti the next morning.
no one told us the drive to the serengeti was going to be bad, let alone THAT bad. we had the windows down (obviously no AC) and every time a car drove by, a dust cloud came in. we got so dirty just from the car ride. and that road puts any road in Baja to SHAME. it was washboard the entire way. if i had sung in one note for 9 hours straight it wouldve been vibrato the whole way. it was so incredibly bouncy and miserable we had to sing songs from Grease and Lion King to distract ourselves. thats when you know youre in desperate times. anyway so we got in to the serengeti and got a gorgeous view of the plains atop a small hill that sortof marks the park enterance. the serengeti plains are so vast its hard to describe its just one of those things you have to see for yourself. its incredible. just as you see it on the nature channel, with the acacia trees and we were there in the dry season ( when all the animals flee north to the maasai mara in kenya ) and there were still animals EVERYWHERE. SOOOO many thomsons gazelles i mean hordes of 50 of them every quarter of a mile. and girraffes just walking across the plains, and elephants. we saw also a cheetah VERY close up that afternoon, we got incredibly lucky as we were one of two cars that got to see it before it fled. i got some pictures but theyre a bit blurry (you need a really nice camera if you go on safari). we saw lions also, we even watched two female lions stalk a bunch of thompsons gazelles -- they didnt succeed but it was amazing nonetheless.
that night we camped in the middle of the serengeti with no fences to block us from animals and with plenty of warnings about animals just coming in to the campgrounds. sure enough that night we heard hyenas super close to the tents and i shared a tent with this hilarious british girl holly whom i love the most out of the volunteers here, and we got woken up by what sounded like two warthogs fighting RIGHT outside our tent. i almost died of fear. it was pumba from the lion king!!!!haha
by the way the lion king is so lame cuz they just used the swahili words for every animal. simba means lion, pumba means warthog, etc. etc.
needless to say the serengeti was awesome, id like to go back someday with matt in the spring to see the wildebeest migration.
then we drove back and camped at the ngorongoro crater (biggest volcanic crater in the world; 600 something km wide or something maybe thats square kilometers who knows i dont remember). i got really sick (physically sick) and almost threw up i think it was the sudden altitude climb and car sickness. we slept on the crater rim at a campsite and all along the safari my biggest fear was an elephant stepping on our tent (ive heard horror stories) and sure enough i woke up in the morning to hear there was an elephant walking around our campground between tents the night before. THEN flash forward that afternoon we went back to the camp ground and there he was, this elephant just chillin in the middle of the tents! i couldve walked right up to him! it was soooo bizarre.
the crater was gorgeous, we got extremely lucky and got to see the black rhinocerous of which there are something like 16 left in East Africa (and the white rhinocerous is now extinct in east africa, theyre only in south africa now). we saw two of them. they look so prehistoric.
oh i failed to mention we all bought cheesy safari hats before the trip. i bartered with the guy and got like 9 for just under a dollar each. they have giant drawings of Kilimanjaro on them and are so cheesy. we wore them with pride~ my god the american tourists and their safari gear is ridiculous. i mean we were kidding but these people are SERIOUS when they wear their gear.
i was telling mom that at one point in the crater, as we were sitting on the roof of our car, this was the scene: hundreds of flamingos on the water, a long line of hundreds of wildebeest and zebras marching to the waters edge to drink, a female and male ostrich, several black and white cranes (the big ones with the pretty orange fray on their head, like birds of paradise flowers), and two rhinos along the waters edge. All in one scene. you have to pinch yourself and say "this isnt the zoo or the wild animal park..this is REAL" haha. really though~ it was amazing.
----------- onto moshi
the womens group has been great and rewarding but very hard work. they catch on so much faster than kids, i have to jam pack the lessons to keep up with them, so i have to prepare lots. i am teaching afternoon classes to them on Tues/Thurs. the last two optional afternoon classes were about business, and i taught them vocab like "profit, buying, loaning, interest" etc. and how to use them in language. todays lesson on business went really well i could tell they were excited.
the women's group also made me two long skirts --- they took my measurements and i picked the fabrics out of the ones they had and they made them. im wearing one but i dont know how it looks cuz i havnt seen a mirror yet, but it seems to fit well! it cost me 10,000 shillings plus 5,000 for labor in each skirt, which amounts to like $20 usd for two skirts that were handmade with lining, zippers and everything custom fit to ME!!! awesome huh?~??
also the other volunteers and the volunteer house has been really nice. the food is really greasy cuz the cooks think thats how we westerners like it. so we are all getting fat i think. its okay though cuz i think i mustve lost at least 10 pounds in uganda so it all evens out in the end. also its super hot here. we are going to a hotel pool tomorrow after we teach in the morning at our various projects (us volunteers),. it costs like 3,000 shillings to hang out at a really nice hotel pool all day (USD 1.50).
lastly i am not climbing kili as you know, and i am pretty sure i'll be able to get the cheap flights to zanzibar so i likely will be going there instead of trying to come home early. i am going to spend the money i was going to use for Kili paying for zanzibar, and im also going to use it to buy a suitcase and TONS of crafts here (paintings, wood carvings, etc) to decorate me and matt's future house in. its so cheap and i honestly could spend 300 USD on stuff here that wouldve cost me 3,000 USD at home, easily. plus i know its authentic here and it supports the local economy. so i'll have fun shopping after school each day. so thats that! i'll update more later this week.
much love,
suz:)
Thursday, August 9, 2007
on safari
as i promised, i convinced the tour company to give us the safari tour for $500 US. he normally charges groups of 4 or more (like the 6 of us going) a flat $280-a-day fee, and since we're going for four days, that would've been something like $1100 dollars. if you dont believe that i'm THAT skilled at bargaining go to his website www.pawarafikitours.com!!!! no really though this is the cheapest safari ever and the lesson here is NEVER book a safari in africa until you get here because you will just pay the listed price which is often totally inaccurate. but i do realize the other reason they give us such a good deal is because we're nonprofit workers in the community.
so for only $500 per person we are going to Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Maasai village, and Serengeti Natl Park. I'll be gone friday morning to monday night:)
also, i am strongly thinking about not climbing kilimanjaro. i have a bunch of reasons but the top reasons are that id rather spend the money on helping my women's group get their kids through primary education at least, i dont want to climb the mountain alone (i mean not alone but with random people i dont know well) not because im scared but just because i feel it would mean more if someone did it with me like matt, and third, i might be able to get a cheap week in Zanzibar instead (and i have three other friends here who are going that week and we'd go together) and nonprofit workers i guess can get cheap cheap flights to zanzibar from here. i have a theory they'll stick us in a cargo hold however. also, about kili, i have bad circulation in my hands and toes and i could rent gloves here but theres no guarantee they'd be quality---and only 2/3 of people climbing make it to the summit. i just didnt come prepared enough mentally or physically to undertake a challenge like kilimanjaro AFTER two months of mentally exhausting teaching etc. i hope that makes sense! i'm doing alright though, im not too disappointed because im so excited about zanzibar.
take care!
love,
suz
so for only $500 per person we are going to Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, the Maasai village, and Serengeti Natl Park. I'll be gone friday morning to monday night:)
also, i am strongly thinking about not climbing kilimanjaro. i have a bunch of reasons but the top reasons are that id rather spend the money on helping my women's group get their kids through primary education at least, i dont want to climb the mountain alone (i mean not alone but with random people i dont know well) not because im scared but just because i feel it would mean more if someone did it with me like matt, and third, i might be able to get a cheap week in Zanzibar instead (and i have three other friends here who are going that week and we'd go together) and nonprofit workers i guess can get cheap cheap flights to zanzibar from here. i have a theory they'll stick us in a cargo hold however. also, about kili, i have bad circulation in my hands and toes and i could rent gloves here but theres no guarantee they'd be quality---and only 2/3 of people climbing make it to the summit. i just didnt come prepared enough mentally or physically to undertake a challenge like kilimanjaro AFTER two months of mentally exhausting teaching etc. i hope that makes sense! i'm doing alright though, im not too disappointed because im so excited about zanzibar.
take care!
love,
suz
Monday, August 6, 2007
in tanzania safely:)
this is just a quick note to say, i got to tanzania safe and sound. i apologize for the last post i just looked at it and it is MILES long! i was really emotional at the time i think! hehe~ anyway its a lot warmer here and much more what-you-picture-Africa-looking-like. and of course mt. kilimanjaro looming in the background which is incredible (especially when you know youre about to climb it!!!!!!). the volunteers here are sweet too.
just went to my project today, i'm working with a Women's group, and i'm the only volunteer working there---intimidating. they are wonderful, there are about 8-10 women. i'll mainly be teaching them English every morning I'll teach two classes to whichever women can attend either one. Thats all i'm expected to do but I am going to come back in the afternoons on my own accord and offer another class that teaches history/ disease and disease prevention and sanitation / business skills/ whatever else seems useful and practical to them, and in that class i';ll be sure to try to get access to swahili dictionaries to make sure they understand the concepts. if you have any ideas for the afternoon class let me know, honestly. e-mail me a lesson plan about disease prevention or explanation (ahem SAFA) . if you want to. I'm already going to take the whole crew to an internet cafe for the afternoon lesson and set up e-mail accounts for them and show them howto check it. the women were excited about me i think because i was so passionate about helping them that i was nothing short of INTERROGATING them (and i am here for four weeks which is a long time).
i always thought working with women was my passion but now im sure of it!!!! i was nowhere near this excited to write lesson plans for the kids, not that the kids werent the cutest things in the world but i am just passionate about working with women in the third world. i talked with them for a long time about what problems i see with women in the third world and what they thought they needed help with, etc. they understood me though their english is pretty basic, and also told me a few of their own problems. all of them haven't been to high school, which is why i want to teach an additional afternoon class. i'd also like to do some problem solving techniques in that class (counseling) and other things theyd fine useful. feel free to email me youre own ideas and i will teach a class on them, anything helps. :)
i think im going on a safari this weekend but i must go plan it. im going to bargain for an extraordinary deal or else i wont go. itll be a 4 day: masai village, ngorongoro crater, serengeti, lake manyara. it goes for 800 usd cheapest, but my goal is to get it for 500 which is unheard of. ive become quite the bargainer. :)
love,
suz
just went to my project today, i'm working with a Women's group, and i'm the only volunteer working there---intimidating. they are wonderful, there are about 8-10 women. i'll mainly be teaching them English every morning I'll teach two classes to whichever women can attend either one. Thats all i'm expected to do but I am going to come back in the afternoons on my own accord and offer another class that teaches history/ disease and disease prevention and sanitation / business skills/ whatever else seems useful and practical to them, and in that class i';ll be sure to try to get access to swahili dictionaries to make sure they understand the concepts. if you have any ideas for the afternoon class let me know, honestly. e-mail me a lesson plan about disease prevention or explanation (ahem SAFA) . if you want to. I'm already going to take the whole crew to an internet cafe for the afternoon lesson and set up e-mail accounts for them and show them howto check it. the women were excited about me i think because i was so passionate about helping them that i was nothing short of INTERROGATING them (and i am here for four weeks which is a long time).
i always thought working with women was my passion but now im sure of it!!!! i was nowhere near this excited to write lesson plans for the kids, not that the kids werent the cutest things in the world but i am just passionate about working with women in the third world. i talked with them for a long time about what problems i see with women in the third world and what they thought they needed help with, etc. they understood me though their english is pretty basic, and also told me a few of their own problems. all of them haven't been to high school, which is why i want to teach an additional afternoon class. i'd also like to do some problem solving techniques in that class (counseling) and other things theyd fine useful. feel free to email me youre own ideas and i will teach a class on them, anything helps. :)
i think im going on a safari this weekend but i must go plan it. im going to bargain for an extraordinary deal or else i wont go. itll be a 4 day: masai village, ngorongoro crater, serengeti, lake manyara. it goes for 800 usd cheapest, but my goal is to get it for 500 which is unheard of. ive become quite the bargainer. :)
love,
suz
Friday, August 3, 2007
leaving nyakasiru.
i dont even know where to start because perhaps the last week was the most eventful week so far and the most emotional...i am in kampala at the moment, we drove here all the way from kabale (6 hrs) today, and i fly out at 2am for nairobi and then on to kilimanjaro international airport, so i will be in moshi tomorrow, late morning. sarah (from australia, another volunteer) is with me as she flies out today, and ladoki (another volunteer) travelled with us back but has left already. we were the first 3 of the 8 total volunteers to leave teach inn and its village nyakasiru as some are staying for 5 or 6 weeks and we all did 4. i have fast internet but the place is closing soon unfortunately...anyway. here i go.
i hope so far you have understood the following terms
nyakasiru: the tiny beautiful village we lived at for a month, very remote. where teach inn and the primary schools are. its half an hour drive from the town of Kabale where we went for internet on the weekends.
teach inn = the volunteer house where i stay which is right right adjacent to:
ryabirenge primary = the primary school teach inn was first built to help
bukoranyi primary = the one that my group has expanded our teaching to, being the first volunteers to go there, and its a 35 min walk from teach inn and the ryabirenge primary.
generation 4 = my group of 8 volunteers is Teach Inn's generation four, meaning the fourth group of volunteers to come to teach inn since it began in april. so as you can tell, this is a brand new operation. generation 1 was the founders...obviously... those who built teach inn.
my classes were the following, and i taught them all with georgie:
P1 - basically kindergarten but even younger at times, i taught at Ryabirenge (the only class i taught there)
P1 - taught this also at Bukoranyi, which also included the nursery babies. so cute. (preschool age)
p5 & P6 - like fifth and sixth grade i guess you could say, we taught these two at Bukoranyi also and our p5 and p6 were so smart and wonderful.
As generation four, we spent our month really trying to get to know the community after discovering that many of the parents and community members (though not the kids as they saw the volunteers regularly) were a little confused as to why we came and why they never see the volunteers. generations 1 thru 3 had the habit of teaching during the week but taking 3 day weekends to do tourist things in Uganda, which is fine, but it meant at the cost of appeasing the local community of Nyakasiru. but anyway, we walked around the community greeting people in their local language, getting to know families and the Head Master of our school and those on the Teach Inn committee from the village. noah, our caretaker, 20 yrs old, i grew so close with him i bawled when i left at the thought i might never see him again. and Hannington, our coordinator from the village, had the most amazing family. its crazy how he had the best job in the village but still no electricity for his family and was still soooo poor. and justus, our night guard. his daughter Active (four years old) was the cutest girl ive ever seen in my entire life hands down. i gave justus two backpacks for active and his son collins, who was in my p1 at Ryanbirenge. Justus was so happy and thankful he ran home in the dark and brought back his wife, and she ran back and hugged me thanking me over and over---then, she brought us a big thing of eggs the next morning and milk from their cows! they was so happy i couldnt believe it. just simple backpacks that weere 1$US were so unaffordable to them, 99% of the kids dont have them and use worn plastic bags for their books. forget the statistic that 2/3 of the world works for $1 or $2 a day. justus works for like 20 cents a day i bet...maybe less. lastly, Moses, the head of the committee, is the richest guy in the village (he even has a car). Warren, who works for Edirisa, the nonprofit in Kabale, supports NINE children through primary and secondary school, and he's very poor himself, but not as poor. So i gave him 9 backpacks. he said all the kids cried they were so happy! i never thought backpacks could be so exciting!
As a result of our efforts to get to know the community, we were rewarded. They embraced us so much. We reached out to Bukoranyi Primary to teach there, and got to know the staff there and be understood by them, and I even went to their PTA meeting last week and spoke some rukiga to them while they laughed at me! haha.
but we were so embraced as a group, community members would come to our teach inn and drop off eggs, cabbages, pineapples, potatoes, bananas, and fresh milk from their cows. we had a family with six kids over for dinner and cooked a feast for them, all 8 of them plus Noah, Hannington and Justus. the family said it was the best day of their life. Kenneth, the head master at Ryabirenge, had us for dinner, as did Moses. Moses has never invited a group of volunteers over until us, so that was a huge honor. And the church woman's group cooked us a feast as well. We had two dinners on wednesday night! (this is all in the past week by the way). We ate their local food with a smile on our face, no matter how different it was, and they appreciated it so much. They feel hurt when the past volunteers didnt even try the food or showed their distaste for it. Food is their culture! they are farmers! you have to love it. and plus, i thought it was good anyway, i'll tell you all about it later, and maybe cook you some chappati:)
but down to emotions here since that was the bottom line. the community had embraced us so much, they and we felt as friends. they cried as we left, noah said he cried for the third time in his entire life, and his first time since being caretaker at teach inn. hannington and kenneth, grown accomplished men, cried as well.
monday, when Kenneth had us over for dinner, his children (whom all attend Ryabirenge and we know all of them well) ate with us, as did Sarah, a girl i was very close with from my P5 class at Bukoranyi. I was curious why she stayed for dinner with their family, even though she was friends with the kids, i figured she'd be with her family for dinner. but she just sat near me as i guess its pretty exciting maybe to have dinner with one of your muzuungu teachers and she was my favorite student anyway~ shes so bright and beautiful and wonderful, she knows english so well, and she is 9 years old in p5 and all her girl friends in p5 are 13!! and im close with her friends to. those were definately my girls:) but especially sarah.
all the kids walked us home in the dark from kenneths that night and sarah and i were holding hands. kenneth turned around and said to me (referring to sarah) "did you know that her parents are dead?" ...i said no of course, and asked if it was disease. "they died of AIDS. she has no siblings either. shes all alone. she just lives with her poor grandparents." i felt like crying right then but she was holding my hand and i just could tell why she was so attached to me and i felt so attached to her. she walked me home and we talked lots and laughed and when i let go of her hand and said bye for the night i cried so much, cried so hard the volunteers had to comfort me so intensely. i just hated it, my brightest student with no chance of paying for secondary school (high school) even though she's smart enough to get in. this beautiful girl with not a single family member but elderly grandparents, no siblings while every child in the village usually has 8 siblings. it costs 30$ US a year for secondary school, which is nothing to us, but millions to them you see.
wednesday, at our primary out at Bukoranyi and my last day teaching there, Joy, the head mistress there, had all the kids gather and do traditional dances to say goodbye to me. it was so beautiful and impromptu as i kind of told her last minute i was leaving. then i had tea with all of the teachers which was so sweet of them. i did feel so loved but so blessed also.
yesterday, thursday, that fateful day that the first of us had to actually leave (Ladoki, Sarah and I). it may have been one of the most emotional days of my life. first of all, Sarah from P5 (the one whos story i just told) came by Teach Inn while i was eating breakfast all dressed up and not in her school clothes, and i asked her why she wasnt at her school Bukoronyi and she started crying saying that i was leaving. i gave her the gift i had for her- the backpack - and we put a couple other things in there for her too. she was crying and we gave her breakfast and she wouldnt have ever left, but i had Kenneth write her a note so she could go to class late at Bukoronyi and not get whacked for it. so i sent her off so i could pack. Kenneth and the community threw us a HUGE goodbye celebration at Ryabirenge. Justus our night guard and his family put on their sunday best and everyone dressed so nicely i actually started crying when i saw Active walk down in her little dress. (Justus also demanded i take many pictures with him, his wife and their kids because i gave them backpacks- i still couldnt believe how happy they were about the backpacks) They even invited the superintendent of the area who spoke to us. Kenneth, Hannington and Moses gave speeches that were so complimentary i couldnt believe it, i felt so humbled even because i felt so undeserving. Moses even said that though we were technically the fourth generation, to Nyakasiru we were the first generation - the first time they really really really were to miss volunteers and felt as friends with us, and felt they understood us. The children dressed up and danced for us the best of their traditional dances (i got some on video), while we sat there and cried so hard. they asked one of us to speak and the volunteers all pushed me up so i stood up, thanked hannington, noah and moses and said "but thanks mostly to the kids whove changed us forever" and started crying so hard i had to sit back down and end my speech. it was just so emotional for all of us. so then they gave us gifts, these woven baskets by the community women. so beautiful. and the ceremony ended. but every single child stayed and crowded around teach inn to wait for us to leave. the aforementioned Sarah from P5 at the other school - showed up to say goodbye to me, all dressed up again. She was crying still and holding my hand. so i hugged her and the taxis came and we hugged the other volunteers goodbye and got into the taxi as all the kids gathered around. we drove off and the kids chased our taxi for so long screaming our names and crying and waving. i got such amazing pictures of them around our taxi running in their school uniforms. i felt like we were literally being ripped away from them.
then i screwed up the whole thing by forgetting my purse so we had to go back (so anti-climactic we were crying and laughing at the same time) and i ran up to teach inn and grabbed my purse while the left-behind volunteers and noah laughed at me, but georgie told me to look over at the lawn, and there sarah from p5 was sitting by herself, bawling her eyes out. i walked over to her and held her and kissed her and said it would be okay but she couldnt even look up. i left then for good. as i ran back to the taxi, the other volunteers yelled : goodbye suzy marinkovich!!!! haha. and by the way, i talked to hannington and i will be paying for Sarah's secondary school, though she doesnt know that yet. its so hard to get money out to them as they are so remote, and she wont be at secondary school for two years, but i'll probably start paying her primary fees now. shes so smart i dont want her to lose the chance of going to high school. you cant save every child, but i knew if i walked away from sarah without making that promise to her than i would be the most heartless person in the world - and i wouldve learned nothing from her. im sure she thought the backpack was more than she'd ever received in her life, but i love the most to think about how happy she will be to go to high school. more than that, i love that though she was sad, she felt loved by me, so loved she was so destroyed when i left, and even though she was sad, i was glad to have loved her for the time i did because i know she will always think of me. i dont think you could ever understand the depths of an orphan's loneliness and feelings of being unloved until you get to know one like sarah, and watch them as you leave. i promised a lot of people i would come back to uganda to see them at nyakasiru, but i didnt believe myself until i said it to her. i have to go back, i owe it to her. we owe orphans so much love they never got and i was lucky to love one of them. i have to change the subject now because ive started crying again...
needless to say, i think i'll always cry when i think of all the kids, but especially sarah. i feel like shes my daughter in a way, and i'd never say that but no one calls her their daughter anyway so why not. i know i love her like one and parts of me think i will always, always cry when i think of her. im so destroyed to leave here. but, i just have to lean on knowing i will come back, even if years from now, i will.
suz
this is justus's wife, the baby and the one and only ACTIVE!
us volunteers after the ceremony with our plaques (i forgot to mention we planted trees)
the men in our life: from left: kenneth, justus, noah, hannington
this is my famous sarah:
i took this picture from the backseat of the taxi as we drove away:
i hope so far you have understood the following terms
nyakasiru: the tiny beautiful village we lived at for a month, very remote. where teach inn and the primary schools are. its half an hour drive from the town of Kabale where we went for internet on the weekends.
teach inn = the volunteer house where i stay which is right right adjacent to:
ryabirenge primary = the primary school teach inn was first built to help
bukoranyi primary = the one that my group has expanded our teaching to, being the first volunteers to go there, and its a 35 min walk from teach inn and the ryabirenge primary.
generation 4 = my group of 8 volunteers is Teach Inn's generation four, meaning the fourth group of volunteers to come to teach inn since it began in april. so as you can tell, this is a brand new operation. generation 1 was the founders...obviously... those who built teach inn.
my classes were the following, and i taught them all with georgie:
P1 - basically kindergarten but even younger at times, i taught at Ryabirenge (the only class i taught there)
P1 - taught this also at Bukoranyi, which also included the nursery babies. so cute. (preschool age)
p5 & P6 - like fifth and sixth grade i guess you could say, we taught these two at Bukoranyi also and our p5 and p6 were so smart and wonderful.
As generation four, we spent our month really trying to get to know the community after discovering that many of the parents and community members (though not the kids as they saw the volunteers regularly) were a little confused as to why we came and why they never see the volunteers. generations 1 thru 3 had the habit of teaching during the week but taking 3 day weekends to do tourist things in Uganda, which is fine, but it meant at the cost of appeasing the local community of Nyakasiru. but anyway, we walked around the community greeting people in their local language, getting to know families and the Head Master of our school and those on the Teach Inn committee from the village. noah, our caretaker, 20 yrs old, i grew so close with him i bawled when i left at the thought i might never see him again. and Hannington, our coordinator from the village, had the most amazing family. its crazy how he had the best job in the village but still no electricity for his family and was still soooo poor. and justus, our night guard. his daughter Active (four years old) was the cutest girl ive ever seen in my entire life hands down. i gave justus two backpacks for active and his son collins, who was in my p1 at Ryanbirenge. Justus was so happy and thankful he ran home in the dark and brought back his wife, and she ran back and hugged me thanking me over and over---then, she brought us a big thing of eggs the next morning and milk from their cows! they was so happy i couldnt believe it. just simple backpacks that weere 1$US were so unaffordable to them, 99% of the kids dont have them and use worn plastic bags for their books. forget the statistic that 2/3 of the world works for $1 or $2 a day. justus works for like 20 cents a day i bet...maybe less. lastly, Moses, the head of the committee, is the richest guy in the village (he even has a car). Warren, who works for Edirisa, the nonprofit in Kabale, supports NINE children through primary and secondary school, and he's very poor himself, but not as poor. So i gave him 9 backpacks. he said all the kids cried they were so happy! i never thought backpacks could be so exciting!
As a result of our efforts to get to know the community, we were rewarded. They embraced us so much. We reached out to Bukoranyi Primary to teach there, and got to know the staff there and be understood by them, and I even went to their PTA meeting last week and spoke some rukiga to them while they laughed at me! haha.
but we were so embraced as a group, community members would come to our teach inn and drop off eggs, cabbages, pineapples, potatoes, bananas, and fresh milk from their cows. we had a family with six kids over for dinner and cooked a feast for them, all 8 of them plus Noah, Hannington and Justus. the family said it was the best day of their life. Kenneth, the head master at Ryabirenge, had us for dinner, as did Moses. Moses has never invited a group of volunteers over until us, so that was a huge honor. And the church woman's group cooked us a feast as well. We had two dinners on wednesday night! (this is all in the past week by the way). We ate their local food with a smile on our face, no matter how different it was, and they appreciated it so much. They feel hurt when the past volunteers didnt even try the food or showed their distaste for it. Food is their culture! they are farmers! you have to love it. and plus, i thought it was good anyway, i'll tell you all about it later, and maybe cook you some chappati:)
but down to emotions here since that was the bottom line. the community had embraced us so much, they and we felt as friends. they cried as we left, noah said he cried for the third time in his entire life, and his first time since being caretaker at teach inn. hannington and kenneth, grown accomplished men, cried as well.
monday, when Kenneth had us over for dinner, his children (whom all attend Ryabirenge and we know all of them well) ate with us, as did Sarah, a girl i was very close with from my P5 class at Bukoranyi. I was curious why she stayed for dinner with their family, even though she was friends with the kids, i figured she'd be with her family for dinner. but she just sat near me as i guess its pretty exciting maybe to have dinner with one of your muzuungu teachers and she was my favorite student anyway~ shes so bright and beautiful and wonderful, she knows english so well, and she is 9 years old in p5 and all her girl friends in p5 are 13!! and im close with her friends to. those were definately my girls:) but especially sarah.
all the kids walked us home in the dark from kenneths that night and sarah and i were holding hands. kenneth turned around and said to me (referring to sarah) "did you know that her parents are dead?" ...i said no of course, and asked if it was disease. "they died of AIDS. she has no siblings either. shes all alone. she just lives with her poor grandparents." i felt like crying right then but she was holding my hand and i just could tell why she was so attached to me and i felt so attached to her. she walked me home and we talked lots and laughed and when i let go of her hand and said bye for the night i cried so much, cried so hard the volunteers had to comfort me so intensely. i just hated it, my brightest student with no chance of paying for secondary school (high school) even though she's smart enough to get in. this beautiful girl with not a single family member but elderly grandparents, no siblings while every child in the village usually has 8 siblings. it costs 30$ US a year for secondary school, which is nothing to us, but millions to them you see.
wednesday, at our primary out at Bukoranyi and my last day teaching there, Joy, the head mistress there, had all the kids gather and do traditional dances to say goodbye to me. it was so beautiful and impromptu as i kind of told her last minute i was leaving. then i had tea with all of the teachers which was so sweet of them. i did feel so loved but so blessed also.
yesterday, thursday, that fateful day that the first of us had to actually leave (Ladoki, Sarah and I). it may have been one of the most emotional days of my life. first of all, Sarah from P5 (the one whos story i just told) came by Teach Inn while i was eating breakfast all dressed up and not in her school clothes, and i asked her why she wasnt at her school Bukoronyi and she started crying saying that i was leaving. i gave her the gift i had for her- the backpack - and we put a couple other things in there for her too. she was crying and we gave her breakfast and she wouldnt have ever left, but i had Kenneth write her a note so she could go to class late at Bukoronyi and not get whacked for it. so i sent her off so i could pack. Kenneth and the community threw us a HUGE goodbye celebration at Ryabirenge. Justus our night guard and his family put on their sunday best and everyone dressed so nicely i actually started crying when i saw Active walk down in her little dress. (Justus also demanded i take many pictures with him, his wife and their kids because i gave them backpacks- i still couldnt believe how happy they were about the backpacks) They even invited the superintendent of the area who spoke to us. Kenneth, Hannington and Moses gave speeches that were so complimentary i couldnt believe it, i felt so humbled even because i felt so undeserving. Moses even said that though we were technically the fourth generation, to Nyakasiru we were the first generation - the first time they really really really were to miss volunteers and felt as friends with us, and felt they understood us. The children dressed up and danced for us the best of their traditional dances (i got some on video), while we sat there and cried so hard. they asked one of us to speak and the volunteers all pushed me up so i stood up, thanked hannington, noah and moses and said "but thanks mostly to the kids whove changed us forever" and started crying so hard i had to sit back down and end my speech. it was just so emotional for all of us. so then they gave us gifts, these woven baskets by the community women. so beautiful. and the ceremony ended. but every single child stayed and crowded around teach inn to wait for us to leave. the aforementioned Sarah from P5 at the other school - showed up to say goodbye to me, all dressed up again. She was crying still and holding my hand. so i hugged her and the taxis came and we hugged the other volunteers goodbye and got into the taxi as all the kids gathered around. we drove off and the kids chased our taxi for so long screaming our names and crying and waving. i got such amazing pictures of them around our taxi running in their school uniforms. i felt like we were literally being ripped away from them.
then i screwed up the whole thing by forgetting my purse so we had to go back (so anti-climactic we were crying and laughing at the same time) and i ran up to teach inn and grabbed my purse while the left-behind volunteers and noah laughed at me, but georgie told me to look over at the lawn, and there sarah from p5 was sitting by herself, bawling her eyes out. i walked over to her and held her and kissed her and said it would be okay but she couldnt even look up. i left then for good. as i ran back to the taxi, the other volunteers yelled : goodbye suzy marinkovich!!!! haha. and by the way, i talked to hannington and i will be paying for Sarah's secondary school, though she doesnt know that yet. its so hard to get money out to them as they are so remote, and she wont be at secondary school for two years, but i'll probably start paying her primary fees now. shes so smart i dont want her to lose the chance of going to high school. you cant save every child, but i knew if i walked away from sarah without making that promise to her than i would be the most heartless person in the world - and i wouldve learned nothing from her. im sure she thought the backpack was more than she'd ever received in her life, but i love the most to think about how happy she will be to go to high school. more than that, i love that though she was sad, she felt loved by me, so loved she was so destroyed when i left, and even though she was sad, i was glad to have loved her for the time i did because i know she will always think of me. i dont think you could ever understand the depths of an orphan's loneliness and feelings of being unloved until you get to know one like sarah, and watch them as you leave. i promised a lot of people i would come back to uganda to see them at nyakasiru, but i didnt believe myself until i said it to her. i have to go back, i owe it to her. we owe orphans so much love they never got and i was lucky to love one of them. i have to change the subject now because ive started crying again...
needless to say, i think i'll always cry when i think of all the kids, but especially sarah. i feel like shes my daughter in a way, and i'd never say that but no one calls her their daughter anyway so why not. i know i love her like one and parts of me think i will always, always cry when i think of her. im so destroyed to leave here. but, i just have to lean on knowing i will come back, even if years from now, i will.
suz
this is justus's wife, the baby and the one and only ACTIVE!
us volunteers after the ceremony with our plaques (i forgot to mention we planted trees)
the men in our life: from left: kenneth, justus, noah, hannington
this is my famous sarah:
i took this picture from the backseat of the taxi as we drove away:
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