Last days in Geita

It's dark outside, the African jungle-sounding nighttime noises are creating a chorus outside our windows, and from some house a ways away I can just barely make out Celine Dion on the radio (people here like to play their music loudly)... but other than that it's peaceful and quiet, so I figured it'd be the perfect time for an update. I promise this one will be more encouraging than the last!

First, this was a beautiful sight yesterday:



I never thought I would be so thankful for rain, but after living here for nearly two weeks and sparing water and Daniel having to take a huge tank (seen in the background of the picture) into town to fill up from another water source there, we were all smiling when the skies opened up and we could collect a couple thousand liters off the roof in barrels, buckets, and tanks. Drinking water (don't worry, it's filtered first), shower water, washing dishes and clothes water... we have enough for awhile!

Also going on at the house lately has been Marina's "Salooni" (salon in Swahili) which she's opened up. To all the relatives I did this to when I was little... it was payback time ; )



Other than that, I have been doing interviews for my research and am finding people's opinions about who missionaries are and what they are here to do really interesting. Some people say they come because they want to live in a new place. Others think that missionaries want to earn money. To help people. To teach about God. To spy. Quite the colorful quilt these people are painting for me! I've talked to people from all different walks of life, from the diocese bishop to housekeepers, and one thing I am loving about the interviews is how much people like to talk and share thier opinions. It's fun!

I will be in Geita until Friday when I board another night bus back to Nairobi (oh joy). I'll stay with the same family I did on my way through last time and am really looking forward to that, and then on Sunday night I'll leave the Southern Hemisphere and the warm weather and head to Germany for a quick visit.

Speaking of the Southern Hemisphere... here are my two quick observations about it:

1. The constellations look different. Of course I knew this would happen, but let me tell you, the big dipper does not look like it could hold any water at this angle.

2. I really wanted to see a toilet flush with water swirling in the opposite direction. No such luck. All the toilets here are either not the kind that swirl in circles or are just plain holes in the ground. Bummer.

Mgussu

I don't exactly want to write about everything that happened yesterday, because the things I saw weren't pretty and aren't going to be nice to read about... but I think that it's important to know what goes on in the world beyond our realms of comfort and familiarity, so here we go.

Yesterday morning we left Geita and headed to a village called Mgussu on the other side of the mountains where the gold mines are. On the drive out, we passed by a crowd of one hundred people or so on the side of the road and slowed down to see why they were all collected there. As we got closer, we saw a man lying on the side of the road, nearly dead. He'd just been stoned by that crowd of people for stealing 1 kg of beans, and the police officer who stood nearby was apparently only there for crowd control.

I looked away as quickly as I could, but even that quick glance was enough to burn the image in my mind for forever. Sitting there smashed in the back seat of a car between three other people, I couldn't stop the tears from coming. It was a pretty awful scene. I can understand to an extent why vigilante justice exists here. The entire justice system is corrupt, so when theives and murderers are let out of prison after just a few days when the right people are paid, this ensures that they won't come back and no one person in the community can be prosecuted for murder. It's just still a hard thing to comprehend and even harder to see.

Anyway, after that we arrived in Mgussu, a village right by the gold mines where money flows just about as fast as the alcohol or as quickly as the water flows through the streets like rivers when it rains. Daniel told me that according to a study group that came through the area recently, 98.7% of the prostitutes there are HIV positive, the highest rate out of all 6,000 other areas this group surveyed.

Here's a girl that I met in the village taking care of a baby who is probably her sister. They were both really cute.



After holding a seminar in the church in Mgussu, we drove to the big gold mines and looked at how open pit mining is done. Entire mountains are moved and literally set down piece by piece, upside down, in a new spot. The chemicals the mines use for processing the gold are stored in a giant man-made lake that a security guard told us killed nineteen cows within minutes who drank from it a few weeks ago. The money all leaves the country and goes to foreign countries, and the workers are treated badly. It was fascinating to see the rock layers as they defaced entire mountains just to get some sparkly powder. Here is a small portion of a mine.



Anyway, that was my day. It made me sad, angry, and thankful all at once... the latter mostly because it reminded me not to take my home for granted.

Water

It’s Friday morning and I have a few spare minutes that I thought I would use to write a quick update. At 10:00 we’re going to drive to a village in the area to hold a seminar about safe drinking water and hygiene. There are two Americans here visiting who have been leading the seminars all week long in tandem with the Kroppachs. I have learned more about wells, bore holes, pumps, biosand filters, and finding where to drill or dig for water in the past week than I had planned on knowing... but it’s really interesting. If anyone needs a well or bore hole put in when I get back... nah, just kidding – I probably still can’t help you ; )

What I’ve basically been up to this whole week is doing whatever the family does, learning about what their missionary work looks like, and starting to do interviews with a few people here. The interesting thing that I found yesterday as I asked several people about their opinions on missionaries is that in this particular village, there were only a handful of people who’d ever met a missionary before! Made me have to rethink how I wanted to ask my questions, that’s for sure, but it was fun to get to talk with some people from the village through a translator.

The seminar yesterday was in Bohalahala where we visited for church on Sunday. I saw their lone source of water, a muddy stream that is used in the following order from upstream to downstream: cattle watering, then laundry washing and bathing, and then drinking water. No wonder that when we ate there on Sunday, the rice that was washed with water was a little bit on the brown side...

Anyway, during the course of the seminar we were given food several times. First someone comes around with a basin and a pitcher of really hot water (this is done by the local tribe to ensure that there are no bad spirits in the water) that they poured while you washed your hands with soap. Then we were given chapati (flatbread browned in oil) with tea for breakfast, which we had to take more of than we wanted in order to be polite, but it was hard knowing we were eating a second breakfast that we didn’t really want in front of everyone else in the church, many of whom probably hadn’t eaten since the day before. But again, I was really thankful for the hospitality.

My time here in Geita has challenged me to learn a lot already... and I have only been here for a week now. There are many things that are hard for me to grasp and others that make me really mad. I hate hearing about the gold mines run by foreign companies here that are destroying the environment, polluting the area with mercury, lowering the water table so that many shallow wells are in danger of being dry within a few years, and isn’t paying taxes to the government. It’s not fun to listen to stories about taking people to the local hospital and seeing more dead bodies come out than people on the mend. And I have also heard a lot about NGO’s who come into a village, give out wells and mosquito nets and shoes, and then leave... and the things either aren’t used or are sold for profit and basically are a short-term fix that is often more abused than used by the people to help improve their situation.

All of this it’s a little bit difficult to write about in a blog post, but that’s just a little summary of some thoughts floating around in my head. At the same, I do see other good and encouraging things happening in Africa right now as well, the people are usually very friendly and welcoming, and I am incredibly thankful to be here and to have the privilege of learning so many things, many of which fall well beyond the bounds of my thesis project.

Pictures

Not sure why, but the pictures that didn't want to load the other day are posting fine now, so... here you go - the images that go with my last update!

The church we went to on Sunday


The church choir singing and dancing (and if it looks like we are behind them... well, we are. As guests we sat at the very front of the church facing the rest of the congregation)


The Evangelist (like a pastor) and his wife and family in front of their house where we ate lunch after church


Hannah and Marina in their princess dresses

Karibu/Wilkommen/Welcome in Geita!

After a very long and cold and bumpy bus ride, I finally made it to Mwanza, Tanzania and later arrived in Geita (pronounced “gay-tah”) on Thursday afternoon. The whole experience wasn’t quite as awful as I had thought it might be, mostly because the seat next to me was empty and I could sortof stretch out and catch at least an hour or so of sleep. The highlight for me was seeing the Serengeti on my left and Lake Victoria on my right after we crossed the border. I also thought that the mountains that popped up out of the plains were really cool - they were covered with big, smooth, gray rocks that looked like they were all stacked and arranged by hand. I can only compare it to Stonehenge... but on a mountain.

For the next two weeks I will be living with Daniel, Steffi, and their three girls Marina (5), Hannah (2), and Nele (7 months). They live on the outskirts of Geita in a newly-built house where I have overtaken Nele’s room for the two weeks I will be here. I share the room with a little lizard who is sadly missing half of his tail. The house is lovely, but the problem at the moment is that their well isn’t working, and the barrels that catch rainwater as it falls off the roof that we have been using to shower and to filter for drinking water and such are nearly empty. Apparently they are going to be able to get water from somewhere else and bring it back to the house, although that sounds like a lot of work. Guess we are about to start some serious water conservation efforts!

The Kroppachs have been really nice and welcoming since my arrival, and although I haven’t gotten to actually see much of their work with the youth here yet, it sounds really interesting what all they’re doing with the youth. This new phase of research is going to be a lot different than the first. Speaking of which, with this move to Tanzania, I have also entered the German-speaking phase of the trip, as that is what we speak here at home and because most people in Tanzania speak only Kiswahili and their tribal language... so much for English being helpful!

On Friday night and all day yesterday there was a meeting for all (four) of the other German missionaries who work with Allianz Mission in Eastern Tanzania, the organization that sent Daniel and Steffi, so all of a sudden the house was full and I found myself in the middle of what was like a small group. We sang songs and had a few devotionals and it was really fun to be a part of that all! I didn’t expect there to be any sort of community like that out here, but I just happened to come on a weekend where people had driven several hours to come for the meeting, so it worked out nicely.

All day yesterday I was on kid duty with another girl about my age so that the parents could talk, which was fun... and exhausting! We made crafts, played games, read books... I have been playing with the girls a lot since I’ve gotten here since they usually don’t have much company around, which I think they are loving. And which is tiring me out a little bit since I'm not used to being around younger kids ; )

We went to church today in a nearby village, and I was very thankful that it wasn’t quite as long as the last service I went to in Diani. Daniel and Steffi translated into German for me so I wasn’t completely lost. Afterwards we were invited by the pastor to eat at his house. It was so gracious of them to ask us to come, but I felt bad at the same time eating their food as they clearly were not well-off in the first place. I was also excited because I thought I was going to eat the freshest meat I’ve ever had (i.e. chances were high that they would catch and slaughter a chicken and then cook it for us), but sadly we just had beef... of questionable sanitation. But I was thankful for the food!

Also... I took pictures of lots of things to be able to show you all and for some reason can't get them to load on this computer : ( Hopefully I'll get it worked out soon!

In Nairobi

I arrived safely last night... suitcase, sanity, and all : ) Between being stressed about traveling alone and getting things to fit into my suitcase, I wasn't quite sure I'd survive, but everything worked out just fine. My suitcase was exactly 20.0 kg, which was the maximum weight allowance, and I was picked up directly from the airport by a car full of five very friendly and welcoming missionaries from Kenya, Germany, and America.

I am staying in the midst of a cluster of missionary houses with a German/Sudanese family. Brigitte is the only one home at the moment as her kids are all on a class trip and her husband is away teaching at a university, so last night the two of us stayed up til nearly 1 A.M. chatting away in German (which made me discover just how rusty my German has become!). She told me stories of living alone in the bush in northern Kenya for a few years as a nurse and getting attacked and shot at by bands of raiders and showed me pictures of her time there, which I could never, ever imagine being brave enough to do! This morning she is going to take me around downtown Nairobi to see the city, and then later I get to babysit their six year old daughter while the parents go into town for a meeting. I'm kindof excited about it : )

And just as a fun sidenote... when I got off the plane last night, I literally gasped as I felt the temperature of the air outside (while eyeing my coat I'd carried and wondering if I should put it on) - it couldn't have been more than 70 degrees and wasn't humid at all. Nairobi is at a much higher elevation than Mombasa, which is why it's so much colder, but I definitely have jeans on and slept under a comforter for the first time in three weeks. It feels a little bit strange to be chilly and to not be sweaty all the time! Am I still in Africa?

Off Again

It’s about that time – the day of my departure from Diani Beach has arrived, and tonight I’ll be hopping on a flight from Mombasa to Nairobi and will stay overnight with a missionary family in the city. Tomorrow I’ll get on a bus at 9 P.M. that will take me from Nairobi to Mwanza, Tanzania (in theory I’ll arrive at 11 A.M. the next morning, although who knows how timely African buses are)… it’ll probably be a hot, cramped, and uncomfortable fourteen hours! I can’t wait for the minute that I actually arrive in Tanzania and finally meet the German family that I’ll be living with until March 5th!

My suitcase is just about the right weight I think, my carry-on is stuffed, and I am going to be carrying my winter jacket on the plane with me (on a ridiculously hot day) and wearing tennis shoes with my skirt since they’re too big and heavy to put them in my suitcase. Boo on luggage regulations!!!!

One quick story before I sign off and finish packing – my research took an interesting twist this morning when I met up with an older English gentleman named Johnno and his wife who live on the coast. I wanted to learn a little bit more about traditional medicine and witch doctors that many people in Africa use (what they do, which types are seen by the local population as good and which are bad, etc.) because many people who visited the eye clinic first tried traditional medicine for healing them and I’m pretty ignorant on the topic.

I figured I might as well learn some more about it while I had the chance, so after a lovely brunch, Johnno took me around his beautiful beachfront estate with one of his house staff and I was given a botany lesson on lots of plants that are used to cure various illnesses. I guess I’m just used to picking up all of my medicines off of a drugstore shelf, so it was mind-boggling to think that so many plants had uses that, according to the people I was with, really work.

This whole time, by the way, I was wearing a hat that Johnno’s wife offered me since it was sunny – it was straw with big white and red feathers and came from a lovely English woman, so how could I refuse? : )

Well, that’s all for now. The taxi will be here any minute to take me to Mombasa and I’d better start lugging my suitcase to the door and making sure I have everything. More to come from Tanzania!

Safari!

It’s been an exciting and adventurous few days in Kenya… and here’s the recap:

I went to Mombasa on Friday and spent the afternoon with a Kenyan Indian family, which was so much fun! We took a “tuktuk” around the city for a bit with a very crazy driver, and I was sure we were going to crash into people, cars, and carts multiple times. A tuktuk, by the way, is like a taxi that has one wheel in front, two wheels in the back, has no windows, and usually seats three passengers. Also while I was visiting with them, two of the girls in the family gave me a fun henna tattoo!



Yesterday Sebastian, Jael, and I drove a ways inland for a picnic in a really remote area overlooking a huge valley that elephants usually roam through.



It was so hot, however, that they were all hiding in the nearby forests, but that didn’t stop us from seeing some later on in the day in a national park. We went on our own mini-safari and had a really fun time driving around in Sebastian’s little red car and looking for animals. The three of us took turns driving and standing outside of the car and “spotting” in order to get a better view while we drove.



For the first hour or so, the animals were nice - sable antelope, buffalo, warthogs, and gazelles – but I was really, really, really hoping to see an elephant. Sure enough, we were in luck and spotted two in one area and a lone young bull elephant in another. I was SO excited to see them and of course had to take lots of pictures, especially of the latter. I unfortunately can’t post the pictures, though, as they’re still undeveloped (I know, I live in the dark ages and still use film – sorry!).

Apparently these young male elephants are the most dangerous and aggressive since they’re not yet part of a herd, yet we rather stupidly stood outside the car, watched it cross the road just 100 feet behind us or so and were snapping pictures when he started looking angry. He was flapping his ears, raising his trunk, and took a few steps towards us, and we all of a sudden realized that he could at any minute charge and mangle our car... so we jumped in the car, started the engine, and drove away in record time. Slightly scary – but we all lived, so no worries (right Mom and Dad?) : )

Seeing animals in their native habitats makes them somehow far more impressive than when there is glass or bars between you and them. It’s also slightly more thrilling and scary to think that there’s nothing to stop the animal from deciding it wants to pay you a personal visit… thankfully we escaped having to experience that!

Today I learned to cook a few costal Kenyan dishes with Jael and her sisters who are here to visit, and they tasted great and weren’t too difficult to prepare… so I am definitely going to have to try them out once I get home.

When I left afterwards, I had to say goodbye to Sebastian as he’s leaving tomorrow for a week-long trip and I’m leaving for Nairobi and then Tanzania on Tuesday. I didn’t expect to make such good friends here, and it’s sad having to say goodbyes already to people I have spent so much time with and who have been so wonderful to me. Sigh… guess that’s life. But I am incredibly thankful to have had both Jael and Sebastian here – they’ve made this leg of the journey so great because I’ve had friends to share it with.

Eye Surgery Is Not for the Faint of Heart.

What a day… I thought it would just be another ordinary eight hours at the clinic spent wrapping up my research here before I leave for Tanzania on Tuesday, but as it turns out, today was a little more exciting than I’d bargained for.

I decided that I wanted to watch an eye surgery while I had the opportunity, so this afternoon I suited up in green scrubs and a hairnet and entered the operating theatre to watch Dr. Sebastian masterfully remove a cataract from an elderly patient and insert a new lens in the eye. I got to look through a microscope while he worked, and it was really fascinating… except I have discovered (without much surprise) that I don’t have the stomach for that kind of thing.

A few minutes into surgery I found myself feeling incredibly hot, nauseous, and unstable on my feet as all the sounds around me and the beeping of the machines faded and seemed to be coming from very far away. I had to sit down and compose myself three times during the fifteen-minute surgery for fear I’d faint and land right on top of the patient (who was, by the way, fully conscious during the entire operation). He handled the whole thing much better than I did, which is slightly embarrassing. Ah well… there’s a reason I’m not going into medicine!

In other news, I’ve been in Kenya for two weeks as of today, and I think I’m really starting to get used to life here. For one thing, it feels very normal now to drive on the left-hand side of the road and to have the passenger’s seat be on the left side of the car. By the way, Sebastian promised to let me try to drive his car someday soon - driver’s seat is on the right and I’ll have to shift with my left hand… should be interesting! Maybe I can talk him into letting me try it out today??

Another thing I see everywhere here that I don’t at home is all the brightly-colored clothing. Because the costal area is 90% Muslim, many of the women also wear the beautiful material to cover their heads. It doesn’t even seem strange anymore to see women wearing full black covering with only their eyes showing (or even having the face completely covered), although I still have no clue how they survive the heat and humidity under all that! My favorite is when women wearing black cloth over their faces put glasses on top of it like I saw in the clinic today : )

I’m also growing accustomed to eating oogali (think white corn meal formed into a sticky ball) with vegetable stew with the fingers of my right hand (no silverware needed!), and I like all the food here I’ve tried so far. Today for lunch I had chipati (like a deep-fried tortilla) with stew - yum! Although this one I had to cheat and use a spoon with… couldn’t quite figure out how to sop up the stew with the chipati without one.

I am almost used to being the only American around and lately have been getting teased about my accent and the way the American “a” is pronounced in a very nasal way – especially having grown up in northwest Ohio - instead of the more British “ah” (as in “mahn-go” instead of “mango” and “Fahn-ta” instead of “Fanta”… or “Stah-cy” instead of “Stacy”). Yes well… can’t help it!

Happy Thursday, more to come when I get back to a computer or internet cafe!

Around the House

Thought I'd get some of these up before Simone's computer has to go in for repairs for a whole week and I'm back to limited Internet access... enjoy : )

My desk in my bedroom


Close-up of my flowers that Simone had put out for me when I arrived


My bed (and the annoying mosquito net tied up in a knot above it during the day)


The veranda where Simone and I sit and read or chat during the evening


Levi and Pluto, the two nicest "guard dogs" I've ever met in my life : )

Weekends are Wonderful

Hello again from the rainy south coast of Mombasa! They’ve had quite a drought here, so the thunderstorms that rolled in last night and this morning have brought some welcome relief to the dryness and heat. Hopefully the rain will be good for the crops, because hunger is really starting to be a problem in Kenya (the Minister of Agriculture released an estimate last week that up to 10 million Kenyans, or nearly 1/3 of the population, will be affected by hunger in the near future). Thankfully as of yet this region has not been affected much yet.

I’ve had quite the adventurous weekend… Saturday Jael and I went into Mombasa to do some shopping in what I have decided to (somewhat sarcastically) call the “Mombasa Mall” – you’ll understand the sarcasm when you look at the picture below. All the clothes come second-hand from America, which was really interesting to see because I’ve been wondering where on earth people are getting their Michigan Wolverines shirts and USA flag shirts from. I have yet to see any OSU clothing… sad story : (



The entire day yesterday was spent taking a trip out a marine park about an hour away and doing diving and snorkeling in the Indian Ocean, which was a really great experience. The water was so clear and blue and gorgeous, and I’ve never seen anything like it in my life! I did what is called a “fun dive” – i.e. you dive and have someone else beside you controlling all your gear. The other diver literally held my hand through the first half of the time, and later he let me swim on my own and just stuck by my side as I swam.



The reef was so beautiful, and the coral and big schools of brightly-colored fish were impressive… but my favorite parts were watching a sea turtle and swimming after him for awhile, as well as swimming about 5 or 6 meters away from dolphins. It was amazing to hear them “talking” under the water, and… WOW. That’s really all I can say!



Unfortunately for me, I didn’t think about the fact that all the salt water was going to wash off my SPF 50 sunscreen in no time, and I am burned to a crisp at the moment. Thankfully I was convinced to bring my aloe vera while I was packing for this trip, which I’ve been using like crazy! The blisters on my back and shoulders don't feel so good, but... I'll get over it. Learned my lesson for next time, that's for sure!