And So It Goes.

... and so we go. Taking off early tomorrow morning in a bus for the long trek to Nairobi, killing a few hours in the city, and flying out at 11pm. Hopefully reaching home by Thursday if the Icelandic volcano gods allow. The week has been a bittersweet mix of reunions and goodbyes.


We went to visit Baby Gloria at her new home out in Kapenguria. She's putting on weight and chugs a bottle like a champ!


Too cute to pass up. What a face.



Being a poser with Sharon and Metrine at Nema House.


Chilling with the very expectant Mama Virginia and Regan at the Veronica Home.
(Getting there that day involved a 30-minute walk through muddy roads, a 10-minute ride in a 12-passenger van with 27 people in it, and riding on the back of a motorcycle in a downpour for another few miles to the house. All in an afternoon's work..)

Visiting classy and popular places like the New York Hotel.


Enjoying the 5-10 minutes of sunshine each day.. (yes that's a lone bike parked on the road)..


Spending most of the day waiting for the rain to stop..


And in the meantime, picking enormous ticks off the Veronica Home's pregnant (and practically comatose) dog, Tiger.

Oh boy. Leaving is hard. I'd hoped it might be easier the second time around, but no such luck.

See you all on the other side...

Lina.

Just got back from a weekend sleepover at the new Veronica Home. It was a little surreal, as we used to have sleepovers often out at the old children's home 2 years ago, with twice the amount of kids. But the new place felt amazingly homey and welcoming.

The best part, hands down, was getting to hang out with Lina. She was brought to the old children's home near-death last time we were here (old post on her here, back when we thought her name was Linda) and has not only healed completely from malaria, pneumonia, severe dehydration and malnutrition, she is stumping doctors now by testing negative for HIV, when her body was rampant with it just 2 years ago.



I had to take a picture of her leg, which used to have a bacteria-filled hole in it (photo on the older post). She no longer walks with a limp, but remembers her hospital stay very vividly, down to every meal she ate there! She is healthy and happy, and has this wizened old soul feeling about her, maybe because she is only 8 but has been through more than most of us will in our lifetimes.

Let's Go to the Hospital!

African hospitals are the one thing that's quite similar to the way I envisioned it before coming to Africa. Without generalizing too much, they are typically crowded, chaotic, dirty, and fascinating.

Last week Ina and I went to Kitale District hospital, partly to find out what happened to a burn victim we visited 2 years ago, and partly to wander around and meet people. (Forget any HIPAA laws around here!)

When we entered the parking lot, an old woman and her daughter, with presumably her daughter tied to her back, ran up to me. The old woman was wailing and holding her wrist while her daughter waved a fee slip and yelled something frantically in Swahili. After a few questions, I discovered the old woman couldn't be treated until she paid the 30 shilling admittance fee (roughly 40 cents). She unwrapped her arm and showed me her wrist, which flopped awkwardly away from her body, clearly broken. Ina can tell you I'm staunchly anti-handouts, but all I could think of right then was "40 bloody cents, Andrea." I handed her two 20-shilling pieces and she wailed her thanks and ran back to the counter to be admitted.

Ordeal #1 complete. And we hadn't even entered the hospital yet.


To cut a long morning short, we spent some time with the nurses in the burn unit, which was also being used for a bit of everything else. There were kids with chicken pox, a boy with the entire left side of his body swollen to twice the normal size, and woman with a huge bloody gauze strip over her eye. A man in a wheelchair with a covered hand was pushed by, wailing, and leaving a trail of blood spots behind him. We talked with a nurse as she 'disinfected' (she touched so many things with her 'sterile' gloves, I lost count) an older woman's leg amputation wound. The majority of her leg had been removed a few years earlier due to diabetes complications, but became infected recently and was so badly enflamed and reopened, you could see the bone inside.

The best part of the day was walking into the infant ward and finding a little bundle on a bed in the back room.



She was brought to the hospital the day before by an area chief, after being found abandoned outside the local prison. She was clearly premature but in perfect condition apart from bug bites on her left arm. I have never seen such an incredibly small but perfectly formed little body.

We went back to visit the next day, and talked to a nurse about her. The only way she could be discharged was if she weighed more than 3kg, and she currently weighed 1. Ironically, the nurse admitted to us, she was much more likely to gain weight in a baby or foster home than in the dirty hospital, being exposed to God knows how many diseases, and fed and changed whenever the overworked nurses happened to have a minute.

On my way to the hospital the 3rd day, I got a text from my friend Mere, saying the baby had just been taken by their friends Jeff and Carla, who run a large and thriving baby home outside town. They'd stopped by to see her and the nurse had told them just to take her, even though she was technically 2kg underweight. So the informality of it all has its pluses..

We are headed back to the hospital tomorrow to pick up malaria meds for a friend. More on that later.

The Week in Pictures. With a Few Words.

Visiting the twins, Teddline and Lavender, from the children's home we worked with 2 years ago. 14 years old and SO tall!


The roads right after a daily downpour. We enjoy standing at this particular spot watching overly-confident vehicles fishtail all over the place before getting stuck.


Dan and the girls hanging out in the front yard of the new Veronica Home.


Ina and her avo the size of a football. One of the many reasons we love Kenya.


Yes, that's a homemade pizza in Kenya.
Yes, we each ate a whole quarter of it.
And yes, it does indeed have a stuffed crust.


On the way out to Mali Saba on the back of a pick-up.


Todd, Ina, and Dan checking out the brick progress at a project in Soy. Check out that view of the valley.


Mama Dreadlocks with baby.


Getting a new hairstyle from Regan, as the rains roll in.


A full week back in Kitale Town.
Highlights:

Eating real pizza. It'd been a while.

A story floating around town about 3 pregnant ladies walking to the hospital. One stops to rest on a log and a cobra comes up and wraps itself around her. A man backs his truck near it, covering it with exhaust fumes, and the cobra flees the scene. Mum and baby both die. Snake is spotted the next day at a farm, eating a cow, before retreating to the forest. Police have been searching for it all week, but assume that after eating an entire cow, it may be digesting for a while. (This is one of those classic Kenyan stories that is tragic if true, but is so bizarre it's hard to believe. We have our doubts, but numerous Kenyan friends swear it happened.)

Driving out to a rural project in the Land Cruiser. Ina and I are in the back seat, Dan is in the front on the phone, and Todd is driving. All of a sudden Todd yells, "Wait, what side of the road am I supposed to be on???!"

Walking down to the Shimo slums nearby and passing a young boy who I vaguely recognized. I asked if his name was Camou, and indeed it was. He was one of the youngest kids at the street kids' school 2 years ago, and I used to buy him cream for the ringworm on his face, as his father is dead and his Mum was a well-known alcoholic in town. He is now a healthy, growing 6-year old going to a local primary school and living with family members nearby. When it feels like so many things here have changed for the worst, stories like that make coming back so sweet.

Everything Changes.

It's funny how in the western world, you can assume there will be a lot of change in a place over 2 years, but I naively assumed because of the slow pace of African life, things would stay generally the same here. Not so, as we've discovered in only a few days back in Kitale. It feels like every project we worked in or alongside has now relocated, gotten new leadership, re-structured itself, or ended altogether.

The biggest change has taken place in my favourite project -- a large, rural home with 2 outstanding house parents and around 30 kids, whom we spent every Saturday and many overnights with in 2008. TI began working with the home the year before, shortly after it started up. Money was invested in animals, a well, farming, and construction. Amazing relationships were established. Over the last year, we'd been hearing about a lot of corruption in some of the home's outside leadership. Food was being taken, a cow was stolen, the well was dry, the kids weren't getting the care they needed, and all the wrong people were being blamed. Most bizarrely, it was discovered that nearly half of the kids in the home actually have well-off family members in the area who were willing to care for them! After much discussion and prayer, TI decided to cut ties with the corrupt people involved, return the kids with families to their homes (while continuing their school sponsorhips and monthly visits), and start a smaller home nearby for the remaining children.

This home is called the Veronica House, after a young girl from the original home who died of AIDS last year. 3 of the remaining kids are HIV+, so there will be a special focus on getting them the right nutrition, medication, and routine to thrive. Ina and I went to the home on Saturday when the house parents and kids moved in. It was both joyful to watch them explore their new bedrooms and backyard, and sad, feeling the enormous absence of so many kids we'd gotten so attached to, particularly the beautiful and quiet Veronica. The house Mum was thrilled to see us again but emotionally spent from so many goodbyes and the past year of accusations, mixed messages, lies, sickness, death, and who knows what else.

And so it goes in Africa. New beginnings are awesome, but mourning the loss of things lost is never easy.

On a lighter note, we also visited the Nema House for ex-street girls last week. 3 of the original 6 girls are still there (a reasonably good percentage, all things considered), and the 3 newer additions seem to be doing really well. Below are the lovely Lillian and Sharon. I took the picture mainly because Sharon is wearing a scrubs top that says "Animal Emergency Clinic, Tacoma, WA."

Yes, We Have No Bananas.

Actual dialogue with a waiter today at a cafe in town:

Me (looking over the large menu): Could I get a mango shake?
Waiter: Sorry, we don't have.
Me: Oh, okay. Umm, a mango juice?
Waiter: Sorry, we don't have.
Me: What about a strawberry milkshake?
Waiter: Don't have.
Me: Okay, umm...
Waiter: From the drinks, we only have passion [fruit] juice.
Me: OH. Okay. That's fine, I won't have anything.
Waiter: No, you must have something! Maybe something small to eat?
Me: No it's okay. Don't worry about it.
Waiter: No, have some food!
Me: Alright, fine. Do you have the spring rolls?
Waiter: Oh no, we don't have.
Me: What about samosas?
Waiter: YES! Samosas we have!
Me: Okay but do you have veg samosas? No meat?
Waiter: YES, we have veg samosas. I'll bring one.

[Waiter returns with samosa and leaves. I take a bite and my mouth is filled with hamburger. He returns.]

Me: I thought you said you have veg samosa? This is meat.
Waiter: No, we only have meat.
Me: OH. I SEE. Well, could you take this one back? I don't eat meat.
(winning line of the day in 3... 2... 1.... )
Waiter: Well, why don't you change your diet?
Me: (thinking: Why don't you go get fired?) No, that's okay. I won't have anything. Thanks.

I swear it was never this difficult living here 2 years ago.

Home Sweet Kitale Town.

We are back at the old stomping grounds of 2 years ago, finally.

Zanzibar was amazing. Amazingly beautiful and amazingly humid. We stayed at a little hostel in Nungwi, on the northern tip of the island. I'm not sure I've ever been anywhere so hot. You could be sitting in the shade not moving at all and still have sweat streaming down your face. Not my cup of tea, but bearable when the Indian Ocean is accessible.

On Saturday night we roamed around Stone Town (central hub of Zanzibar) for a few hours which was so reminiscent of India. About 90% of the island's population is Muslim, with a lot of Indian immigrants and influence.


We bought cheap bananas and drank ginger coffee and chatted with some locals before getting on the overnight ferry back to the mainland. Ina slept the whole time; I woke up at 3am to the boat swaying quite intensely and the sound of about 10 people vomiting. Lovely. We arrived back in Dar Es Salaam by 6am, and hopped in a taxi which ran about 8 red lights to get us onto the bus to Nairobi by 6.15.

On the bus, eating a Tanzanian delicacy known as "Chips Mayai" (pronounced 'my eye'), which is, literally, an omelet with french fries it. Particularly tasty when consumed from a black plastic bag.

The bus ride took 16 sweaty hours, which was a test in perseverance after spending the entire night before on a crowded ferry. A plus was being charged $25 LESS than expected for our Kenyan visas. Since when does THAT happen, in one of the most corrupt countries in Africa?!

We arrived in Nairobi and decided to stay put for an extra day, take in the big city, and get our highly-anticipated hot showers, which were unattainable when we first arrived thanks to a city-wide power outage and the wells not being able to pump (classic Nairobi). We also visited a large AIDS home that has a 70% HIV reversal rate -- one of the highest Africa. (HIV reversal is when a child is born with or tests positive for HIV but after a particular amount of treatment, starts testing negative. VERY interesting and exciting stuff.)

I will admit, we also stayed in Nairobi an extra day so I could eat a proper Mexican burrito at a Westernized restaurant. Glorious.



Yesterday we got on a shuttle for a final 7 hours of travel to dear old Kitale Town. To our surprise and delight, the roads on the first 5 hours of the journey have been repaved... between that and a cheap visa, we're starting to wonder what's going on in Kenya!

Train Travel.

Our table, with all the necessities: Water, TP, malaria meds, raisins, a mobile, Tennis biscuits, and nail polish.

Awesome! Sheets with complimentary blood stains on them!



Ina from the top bunk.

Crossing the border into Tanzania.

Leaving Dar For Zanzibar.

Greetings from extremely hot and humid Dar Es Salaam!
We arrived last night. The train ride was a generally positive experience. The main good thing is that we got to Dar in less than 50 hours. The other good thing was getting to see everything along the way. We passed through a game park yesterday and saw impalas, elephants, and a giraffe! Who needs a safari when you've got the train??

The not so great things:
- Large blood stains on my sheets. MMhmmm.
- Spending the evenings with cockroaches who live on the walls next to your bed.
- Being completely and utterly ripped off at the border.

2 minutes before the Tanzanian border, money changers get on and you change all your Zambian Kwacha to Tanzanian Shillings, which we did. 2 minutes after the border, the passport officials get on and tell you the visa is $50 for Europeans, $100 FOR US CITIZENS, and can only be paid in US dollars or Euros. Let me begin by saying, we've read every travel book and website on our required visas and none are supposed to cost more than $50, regardless of citizenship. Let me also say (mostly to the border guards, because I'm pretty sure everyone else knows this about me) that just because I am an American, I do not carry hundreds of dollars in US currency around with me whilst traveling in Africa.

They had "insisted" we pay in US dollars at the Zambian border too, but eventually caved and let us pay in Kwacha as it was all we had. The Tanzanian border guards, however, quickly called in a money changer with US currency who charged us about 30% interest. We ended up spending every last bloody shilling on the visas. It was that or get kicked off the train at the Zambian border. Ahhhh, African corruption at its finest. I tried my best to shower the border guard with stinging, guilt-tripping comments about how we would now starve to death on the train days as he'd robbed of us all our money and would be held fully accountable.

All I can say is, thank goodness for peanuts and Europeans. Before we went bankrupt, Ina bought an enormous bag of raw, unshelled peanuts from a vendor outside the train window for somewhere around 30 cents, and we proceeded to eat these for the next 3 days. There was also a very sweet German girl sharing our cabin, along with a Norwegian couple and a British/Kiwi couple who shared their bread with us and occasionally a slice of gloriously nutricious tomato. We are forever endebted.

We stayed at the Dar Es Salam YMCA last night, which here seems to stand for You May [Hear] Construction [Noise] Allnightlong. After 2 nights on a lurching and rolling train though, it felt so good to be still. At 4am we were woken by the mosque call nearby. I am trying really hard to be tolerant but any religion that requires not only its followers but every single person within a 20 mile radius to be woken at such an ungodly hour by such an.... INTERESTING noise is going to have a hard time converting me. The joys of staying in a Muslim area. We walked around for a while last night and Dar seems to be quite modern and mixed. It feels a bit like India with a lot of rubbish everywhere and even tuk tuks. In between all the high-rises, there's white sand and palm trees, and the humidity is mind-blowing.

Now we're off to try and sort out bus tickets to Nairobi, before catching the ferry to Zanzibar for the weekend. It's supposedly a very touristy and expensive place, but for once I'm a bit excited to head to a more mainstream location in hopes of finding something to eat besides white bread, peanuts, rice and cabbage, which I'm pretty sure is all we've had for the last 3 weeks.

Also, a word of praise about showers. When you've been having bucket baths or living on a train for many weeks combined, there is nothing comparable to soap and a shower, even if it is freezing. We were a bit hesitant to shower on the train because when you brush your teeth and wash your face, the water you wash your face with looks like the water you just brushed your teeth with. Or water from somewhere else.

But anyway. Bye for now and love to all of you!

Leaving on a Slow Train.

Yesterday we said goodbye to Eden Farm and the treacherous roads of Chingola and headed to Ndola. It's weird how hard goodbyes can be when you've only been somewhere for a week.

On Saturday we were in town picking up some things at the market when a street girl walked over, begging for money. Street boys are all over the place in Chingola but girls are much rarer. We gave her some peanuts and talked for a while; found out her name was Jackie and she was 8 years old. She kept asking us to buy her zapatos (the Bemba word for shoes.. and yes, it's the same word in Spanish. Weird.). We asked where her family was and she pointed to a blind woman sleeping with hands outstretched on the side of the road, with a few young kids playing around her.

When we passed through town yesterday, I saw Jackie sitting near her Mum on the sidewalk. A man and a woman were grabbing at her her feet and she was screaming and kicking. We parked the car and I went over to see her. The couple had left and Jackie was now lying in a heap by her Mum, sobbing. I asked her what was wrong and she pointed to the bottom of her foot, with a band-aid on it, which I assume the couple had been trying to put on earlier. I peeled part of it off and found a wide, swollen, bleeding laceration right in the centre of Jackie's foot. A street boy told us she had stepped on a broken bottle, and they'd pulled a large piece of glass out of her foot earlier. Very reassuring, since street boys are such qualified doctors, typically high out of their minds on glue. We had a bus to catch in 20 minutes. I grabbed some antibiotic ointment and a bigger band-aid and put both on her foot and prayed for her. She just lay there sniffing, next to her incoherent, blind mother. All I could think of as we left was, what if I'd just bitten the bullet and gotten her a pair of $1 flip flops from the market a few days ago??? Ugh. This is the hard part of Africa.

Today we take a bus from Ndola to Kapiri Mposhi to catch the infamous Tazara train to Tanzania. The journey takes anywhere from 30 hours to 5 days, but we are stoked, mainly because it's not another bus. On the bus from Lusaka to Ndola last week, a woman spilled a whole bowl of chicken on the floor by my feet and it stayed there for the remaining 6 hours of hot and sweaty travel. I hate to sound like the martyred vegetarian but SERIOUSLY, out of ALL the 80 seats on the bus..???? Also I'm pretty sure one of the wheels on that bus was wooden. And square.

BUT it doesn't matter because train is the mode of transport for now.
Miss you all and look forward to seeing everyone in just a month...

More from the land of Tanzania!

Thoughts on Zambia.

Zambia is an interesting place. (Duh.) 2 really intriguing things about it:

1. It has 78 official languages. We are learning to speak a bit of Bemba, which is what is spoken most in the Chingola area. When people don't know each others' languages, they speak in English, which is handy for us.

2. Obviously from 78 official languages, it has at least that many tribes living together, plus refugees from surrounding war-torn countries like the Congo. And the fascinating thing is that unlike places like Kenya, everyone gets along just fine, and people are particularly friendly to whites. There's no tribal conflict, and marriages of people from different tribes are very common. It is a really peaceful country, and though very poor, a pretty impressive example to the rest of Africa.


We've had an interesting past few days. On Thursday, the Health Department came to check up on the farm and kids. During their visit, someone discovered a cobra outside and the House Mum came out and killed it with a rock. Apparently the HD workers were quite entertained by all this and left very impressed.

Yesterday we went to find some relatives of some ex-street boys who now live on the farm. One boy has only one surviving sister, and after trying to track her down much of the morning, she was eventually located in a very small village an hour away, near the Congolese border. She was quite sweet and seeing the reunion with her little brother was really emotional for all of us. The other boy is from a township closer to Chingola. His parents have more than 10 children and are really unable to care for any of them. We had to go pick up his birth certificate and get permission from his father that he live at the farm. His grandmother told us we should just take all of the kids to the farm while we're at it. Sad circumstances.

The last week we've been free of car troubles, but yesterday the Land Rover broke way out in the middle of no where, and today we got a flat coming down the 8km road to town. We've nicknamed various parts of it "Devil's Kettle" or "Hell's Ravine". Once we get to the main road and our teeth stop rattling, everyone is very happy.

Total Randomness.

Oh the things you find yourself doing in Africa! What we've been up to:

Taught a class to 26 high schoolers on resumees and job interviews.

Got escorted onto a bus by 2 drunk men who kindly carried our bags on for us, then dumped them on our laps and said, ever so sweetly, "We've done the work, now give us our money!" Gotta love the subtlety.

Ate amazing palak paneer and garlic naan. Yes, in Africa.

Got 27 bug bites on my lower left leg alone. New record!

Taking bucket baths. Can't say I've missed those so much.

Slept in a room with more cockroaches in it than I have ever seen in my life. Turned on the light around 2am and the floor was literally moving.

Rode home at 2am on an 8 kilometre road that takes about half an hour to cover, mostly because it is basically the Grand Canyon of Africa. Forget about driving anything other than a Land Rover on this thing.. I swear it eats small cars alive.

Ran early in the morning past all the locals heading to their farms. The land is stunning.

Wrote up care plans for the kids at the home where we're staying.

Eating heaps of mchima (ground maize, boiled until it's like Malt-O-Meal) and sweet potato leaves. Trying to avoid the deep fried caterpillars.

Doing washing by hand. Missed that.


We are in Chingola, Zambia now, after staying in Lusaka, Ndola, and Kitwe en route. We're working with a team of 14 from the UK at a farm/small kids home out in the boonies -- www.edenfarm.org.uk -- (you have to take the above mentioned 8km road to get out there.. rural doesn't even begin to describe it..) and take off next Monday on the train to Tanzania. Life is good! No running water or electricity, but so much fun with the kids and various projects going on. Today we visited a local hospital's AIDS clinic and spoke with some of the doctors about starting a project with the low/no-income single mothers who come to pick up their monthly ARV medications. So fascinating seeing how things work here in comparison to other places.

Sorry no pictures this time around.. Zambia has yet to know the wonders of broadband so uploading even a thumbnail sized shot is kind of laughable.

Miss you all!

Wham Bam Zambia.

2 flights and one layover in Johannesburg and we stepped off the tarmac into 102 degree Lusaka! It is hot and dusty and loud and full of organized chaos and we finally feel like we're actually in Africa. Lusaka, being the capital of Zambia, has very few things helping it stand out.. it's flat, with no high buildings, and most of it looks about the same as the rest of it. We stayed with fellow Bellinghamster Michelle Widman last night and take off for Ndola this afternoon. The currency here (called kwacha) is nuts. Just as I was getting used to South African Rand, which is 6r to $1, we switch to kwacha, which is 6,000k to $1. So a coffee costs around 18,000 kwacha here. And I withdrew 1 million from an ATM yesterday, praying to God I'd done my math right. Slightly disconcerting...

Goodbye, Cape Town.

Photos from the last few days.

Seal Island.


The lovely and hilarious Gracie at the kids home.


Potential student housing?


Found my long-lost Australian love here... delish.


No joke: there is an extremely popular restaurant here called Spur, and its icon
is an American Indian.

Off to Zambia at 5am tomorrow!

Table Mountain...

...another touristy venture. I've had my fill of American tourists for the next 2 months... but the views were worth it.

Coming up the mountain on the cable car.

Hiking in the clouds.

View from the top.

Shots from the Townships.

Robben Island.

This week we bit the bullet and did some 'mandatory' touristy things in Cape Town, like taking a ferry out to Robben Island. While I've prided myself in 26 years of seasick-free living, this boat ride nearly ended that. It was like a freak water park ride gone horribly awry for almost an hour. The island itself is surprisingly beautiful (and not just because it's blessed solid ground) -- sun and swaying palm trees and white sand with crushed seashells everywhere. In the 1800's it was used for a leper colony. Once it was turned into a prison, there were 2 sides: a medium-security side for thieves, rapists, and murderers, and a maximum security side for political prisoners. The rapists and murderers served no hard labour, while political prisoners worked in the limestone mines, often transporting rocks from one side of the island to the other for no apparent reason.


Mandela's cell.

The prison.

Photo op with our tour guide. This guy served 5 years in Robben Island Prison because, as a university student in the 70's, he was in a non-violent protest against Afrikaans (white South African's language of choice) being required learning in school.