Long over-due update!!

Mambo Rafiki’s

Sorry for the lack of communication, here is a long update about what has been going on! … we have been here for just over a week now, but it seems like we have been here for so much longer, Arusha is slowly becoming home and we are getting more and more comfortable around town. Orientation week is almost over, our last activity is a long hike up to a waterfall on Mt. Meru tomorrow.

The past few days have been very busy. We are become much better at Kswahili and are having fun chatting with the locals and bargaining at the markets. Our Swahili lessons are now over, so from now on we just have to practice!

Wednesday we went to a coffee plantation that had a jewelry workshop next to it. The jewelry was all made by deaf or disabled individuals, because they are rarely educated here and have a hard time finding employment. The place was gorgeous, we started off by having a tour of the workshop, then checked out the store next door. They then brought us amazing coffee and cakes in a couched seating area in the yard, just as we were finishing our cakes monkeys started coming out of the forest. There were tons of them that started running around and playing on the furniture, they provided us with great entertainment. Once we finished our snack we had a tour of the coffee plantation and saw how coffee was made, it was really neat to see the different steps of the process… I will definitely be going back to buy some coffee to bring home.

Thursday we checked out our placements, which we started today… I will go into more detail at the end. Friday we split up into groups and did ‘amazing race Arusha’ – basically we put to use everything we learned during orientation, we bargained at the market, road a dalla dalla down the street, and ran all over the city doing a variety of tasks, it was awesome and I feel so much more comfortable now. Saturday was the last official day of orientation, we did a 7 hour hike to a beautiful waterfall, it was tough but amazing once we got there.

Yesterday we had the day off and all went to a place called Magi Moto hot springs, it was absolutely stunning, we drove for 1.5 hours through very very dry land and all of a sudden there was a hidden oasis, we swam and hung out for a few hours before going back. On our way back however our engine started to over heat (a friend of ours owns a dalla dalla and took us there) so we had to pull over and he threw water on it which sprayed everywhere, once it cooled down a bit we hopped back in and were on our way, we were all very happy when we arrived home… a side note about the roads here - there are no speed limits so there are speed-bumps randomly placed along the road (including on the highway), the speed-bumps are so big though that the bottom of the cars scrapes them… hence the dalla dalla having trouble towards the end of our journey.

And finally today: our first day of placement!

I am working at Arusha Health Center for Women and Children, it is a very very small clinic that serves mostly women and children of low SES. Some of the practices are a little strange, and would shock most of the nurses that read this, but it is going to be very educational, and I am looking forward to it… They have a lot of good things going at the clinic as well, today I worked at the baby clinic weighing and helping vaccinate babies. They all have baby books, just like at home, and return every month to be weighed; we also graph their weight in the book so the mothers can see if their baby is over or underweight for their age. The most exciting part of my day however, was an emergency C-section this afternoon. We scrubbed in and watched the doctors cut through layers and layers, which was slightly gruesome, but very cool, and then all of a sudden there was a baby!! … We started to go into the other room to watch the nurses clean it up and weigh it, but then we saw another baby coming out!! … it was unreal, because of the lack of good ultra-sound equipment they did not know it was twins, both were healthy and happy, it was such an amazing experience!

Leah is working at the AICC which is the nicest and largest hospital in Arusha, most of other volunteers are jealous of her hospital, it is luxury compared to most of the placements… she will describe her experience more in the next post.

That is all!!! Sorry for the long post this time, but they will get shorter!! Oh and for all the Mulgravians reading this, I saw Nolo today!!! She has not change a bit, it was so good to see her!!

Xoxo
Sarah