Day 44

Our newest arrival!

The circumstances are so sad, and yet this little bundle brings such joy.

Meet Ramadan:

He's a week old and his mom died in childbirth due to postpartum hemorrhage. If you're at all familiar with the project I'm working on, you know it's to prevent that exact outcome. It's a harsh reality realizing this little one will grow up without a mom. Instead he'll grow up with twenty six other little boys and girls, all of them sharing very similar stories.

I pray they all grow up knowing how much they are loved. That they know they are smart, and beautiful, and the best kind of silly. But mostly I pray that they know they are loved.
So, so loved.

XOXO,
Amanda

Day 43

Safari, safari!

We planned a trip to a playground in Arusha today for all of the children at the orphanage. When we arrived this morning to pick them up, they were bouncing off the walls with excitement. Trips (or safaris as they refer to them) are extra special occasions that don't happen very often. We filled two vans, and I'm fairly certain each volunteer had at least two children on their lap. 

We packed peanut butter sandwiches and bananas for lunch and spent almost 4 hours there. Even the little ones who were unsure at first ended up having a great time. 

 This is Shujaa. He's one of my favorites, but technically we aren't allowed to have any favorites, so don't tell anyone. This morning while holding him he put his hand on my cheek and said, "Umependeza" (which is the equivalent of 'you look pretty'). Um, melt my heart!

All of the kiddos are truly so sweet and adorable. Their laughter is contagious and they all have the brightest, little smiles. Today marks the half way point of my stay in Africa. How am I ever going to be able to say goodbye?

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 42

Real life wedding crashers.

Okay, maybe not exactly, but pretty darn close. We only knew one person at the wedding, and it wasn't the bride or groom. David (a friend of Mac, who works for The Small Things) offered to take us after hearing how badly we wanted to attend a Tanzanian wedding. Our day was long but the experience was one I won't forget!

We were told to be ready by 9:30, but David didn't show up till nearly 10:30. 

Typical.

We hurried down the hill to catch the "bus" that was taking us to the wedding. Little did we know we would have to wait another hour.

Typical. 

Finally, at 12:00, we were on our way to the wedding! Our "bus" turned out to be a dolla dolla already full of other wedding guests. We sat packed like sardines!

So typical!

David also told us the drive would take around 45 minutes. 

Not quite. 

Try an hour and a half.
Again, typical.

Finally, we made it to the wedding! (And somehow we weren't even late...)

The church ceremony lasted three long hours. Not to mention, I only understand every one-hundredth word! We were also asked in the middle of the ceremony to introduce ourselves. We tried to blend in but I guess our attempts failed!

The last hour of the wedding was the best part. A routine trip to the ladies room resulted in an adventure through a nearby cemetery to snap a picture of Kili. We couldn't have asked for a better view!

(I know exactly what you're thinking. You love my outfit, right? Just trying my best to fit in!  P.S. My "dress" is actually a skirt. I had no choice but to hike it up and hope it looked normal.)

When we returned, it was time for gifts. At Tanzanian weddings, all of the guests line up and dance holding their gifts over their heads. You get to hand deliver your gift and it was so fun! I wasn't crazy about many of their wedding traditions but this was definitely one I loved!

They also sent us home with a third of the cake since we left early. How generous!

Just another day in the life.

XOXO,

Amanda 

Day 41

Lake Duluti

More pictures than words, because we still don't have power! It's only been out for the past 34 hours...

We planned a last minute volunteer social this morning and decided to visit Lake Duluti. It ended up being lots of fun!

This is a nile monitor, which I was convinced was actually a kimono dragon.

Taking on water, hamna shida (no problem)!

Somewhere hidden in this tree is the venomous green mamba snake!

Ashley, Ali, Chris, and I are going to a wedding tomorrow! We don't know the couple getting married, but we were somehow invited. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures!

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 40

Unfinished business.

Power outages really are the pits. We lost power this morning and have now been without it for 10 hours. It's not such a big deal during the day, but it starts getting dark around 6pm. No power also means we have no internet, which makes getting any work done virtually impossible.

We patiently waited for it to come back on until we couldn't wait any longer.  We finally turned on the generator just before 7pm, which also meant I could watch the USA vs Germany game (or so I hoped)!

This message was such a bummer:
"No Service"

Another day without soccer.

___________________________________________

And a very happy birthday to my sweet Grandma who turns 90 years old today! The world is a brighter place with you in it! I'm so sorry I can't be there to help celebrate. Sending all of my love from Tanzania!

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 39

Language 101

I haven't spent much time lately studying any Swahili. Most of the words I've learned have come from listening to the kids at the orphanage. 

Tonight, Ali taught Swahili and Ashley taught French! I will admit I spent the majority of our Swahili lesson watching soccer (meaning my priorities are definitely in order). Ali is practically fluent, although she won't admit it, and Ashley is much more motivated to learn considering she will be here for six months. 

I did pay more attention to our French lesson though! Let's just say my pronunciation was not pretty and provided for plenty of entertainment.

French is hard!

We spent the rest our day running errands around town. The sun even decided to join us!

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 38

Fresh chicken eggs for everyone!

To be fair, all of the chicken eggs we buy in our village are fresh. These ones we just happened to buy straight out of the chicken coop.

Remember Mama Max, who we went to buy chickens for a few weeks ago? She has since had her hands full, but in the best way possible. Today, Rehema took us to visit her and see how her chickens are doing. By the looks of things, they all seem to be doing great!

 The bully!

They are also producing eggs, which we then offered to buy! Eggs are hard to come by in this village because so many are sold to supermarkets in town. It feels good to know your money is going to the best place possible!

And then we saw the weirdest looking camel-cow ever.

XOXO,

Amanda 

Day 37

AfriCafe > Starbucks

That's me, holding a cup of coffee. 

Guess what?

I drank the whole thing! 

(And I promise it only contained a splash of milk and a pinch of sugar!)

I've absolutely despised coffee until now. Apparently all it took to change my mind was a trip to Africa!

And guess what else?

We got cable!

I am living like a king. We have running water, heated showers, electricity, wireless internet, a refrigerator, and now cable. Two of the channels we get in English include TLC and E!. Good for our viewing pleasure, terrible for our reputation. How terrifying we have The Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo representing all of America! 

XOXO,

Amanda

P.S. Momma, I love our Skype dates and I love YOU! They always make home feel a little closer than it really is. 

Day 36

Rain, thunder, and lightening, oh my!

The sun did eventually make an appearance this afternoon, but last night and this morning were a different story. Ashley and I opted to skip the coffee and cheese tour. It ended up being a little more expensive than we had anticipated and the weather just wasn't cooperating. 

Oh well, more time to spend with all my little friends at the orphanage!

We are headed to Arusha to watch some soccer!

USA, USA, USA!

XOXO,
Amanda

Day 35

Happy first day of summer!

I hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine I've been hearing about back home because I woke up to rain.

Again. 

And it's still raining.

There's plenty of things I could choose to complain about but most I've accepted or adjusted to (like the fact that I haven't had a warm shower since the first night I arrived). 
If there was one thing I could change though, it would be the weather.

We attempted market day at Tengeru in between rain showers, but not ten minutes after we arrived we were running back to the car in the middle of another downpour.

In other news, I spent 12,000 shillings ($7.00 USD) on a bag of granola. That may not be an outrageous price to pay for something back home, but here 12,000 shillings is a lot of money. 
(To give you a more general idea of just how much money that really is, 10,000 shillings is a typical weekly salary here!)
I will say though that it was well worth it. I also thought I hated raisins, but I don't!

Tomorrow is a coffee and cheese farm tour.
Go away rain!

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 34

Best seats in the house.

That's us, in the back of a dala dala. This car was a little different than the other ones we are used to. It resembled more of a station wagon. The locals thought it was hilarious but we didn't mind. We weren't squished and there was no one sitting on our lap.

We'll take those seats any day!

The rain has returned and we've lost power three nights in a row now. 

Welcome to Tanzania!

XOXO,

Amanda

Day 33

Best. Day. Ever.

Ali and I had our first meeting with the traditional birth attendants (TBAs) this morning! It started out a little (okay, a lot) hectic but it all came together in the end. 

We asked Esther, who cleans the compound for us once a week, to make the chai and mendazi for us. However, only half the mendazi was cooked by the time we left for the hospital and she hadn't yet started making the chai. The printer also ran out of ink and we were only able to print 11  brochures.

Deep breath...

We knew the meeting wouldn't start on time. We even purposefully set the meeting for 10:00, knowing it wouldn't start before 10:30. Good news, the meeting didn't actually start until 11:15! It didn't help that once the chai finally arrived, we ran out within minutes. Can you tell we're new at this?

Here's the thing though, we had no idea how many TBAs would be attending. At the last community health workers meeting, we asked them to please tell the TBAs in their village when and where the meeting would be. We estimated 30 attendees, and felt that was being extra generous. We couldn't be sure news of the meeting would even reach the TBAs and when we woke up to pouring rain and muddy roads, we just assumed attendance would be low.

Boy, were we wrong. 

So, so wrong.

We had 41 women show up! 

Forty. One. 

I still don't have to words to describe this morning. I feel extremely blessed to be a part of something with so much potential to make a difference in the lives of women and children. Our next meeting is set for July 3rd, where we plan to do a formal training session with the TBAs.

For anyone not familiar with the project I am working on, here's the low down:

Africa has a very high maternal mortality rate,  and the largest contributor happens to be postpartum hemorrhage. It is recommended that all women give birth in the hospital but for a variety of reasons, there are women who still give birth at home. 

That's where my project comes in. 

Oxytocin is what is most commonly administered to women postpartum to prevent hemorrhaging but because it must be administered through an injection and requires refrigeration, it can't be used by TBAs during at home births. Thankfully, there's an alternative: Misoprostol!  It can be easily stored and administered orally. I've been working closely with the Nkoaranga Hospital and their palliative care team to implement a program that would allow TBAs to administer Misoprostol to women who give birth at home.

Today's meeting was monumental. We've finally reached the TBAs! It took some time (about a month) but now that we've found out who they are, we can begin teaching them how to use and administer Misoprostol and hopefully reduce maternal mortality! 

(I may be getting a little ahead of myself, since reality check, there is a still lot of work to be done. It just feels so great to be on the right track!)

XOXO,

Amanda