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Wow! What an amazing 24 hours we have had. Last night we went to Asha's home for dinner. She lives not too far from the CCS home base in what she called her bibi (grandmother) house meaning that it's much smaller because she has no children at home. Except the house wasn't small and she has her granddaughter and several 20-something year old boys living with her. Her granddaughter Lily made dinner for us and it was so wonderful. We started off with avocado juice which I never even knew existed. It is sooo good. You juice any other sweet fruit (last night it was orange) and mix them together. The juice looks green and tastes mostly like orange juice! We had a meal much like the dinners here - rice pilaf with peas, a curried vegetable dish, spaghetti, cucumbers, tomatoes, fruit and the new treat was cassava. cassava is a vital staple for about 500 million people. Cassava's starchy roots produce more food energy per unit of land than any other staple crop. Its leaves, commonly eaten as a vegetable in parts of Asia and Africa, provide vitamins and protein. Nutritionally, the cassava is comparable to potatoes, except that it
has twice the fiber content and a higher level of potassium.
Syd -Asha is inspiring. She is about 70, I think. She retired from teaching home economics. She talked to us about how she started Mkombozi and how busy she is all of the time. People here have a few cell phones because believe it or not, it’s cheaper. So about every 10 minutes Mama gets a phone call on one of her three phones. We asked her what time she goes to bed, she said eleven. She also said she gets up at three for prayer and tries to go back to bed around five. Then she’s up again not long after for a busy day at work. Asha had five bedrooms built on to her house in hopes of volunteers staying there through Mkombozi for only fifteen dollars a night, meals and all. I really hope that works out for her. She and Stanley kept telling me that after school I should come back for an internship or something and stay with them. It amazes me how lovely and friendly they are. I would totally come back and stay with Asha. She
would easily make me feel at home. Although my nose was really congested, my sinuses hurt and I felt tired and I kept thinking how nice sleep sounded, I had a really good time. Listening to Asha and spending time with her was an experience I will always remember.
Happy Fourth of July everyone! Today we helped build an orphanage. We all drove about thirty minutes into a forest of banana trees to the site where a foundation of anL-shaped building was being built. We expected more of a building with little things like pulling weeds and painting that may need to be done. Instead we moved dead banana tree trunks, filled wheel barrows with sand and gravel, filled buckets with water, mixed it all up with cement, and made concrete for the slab of the building. At first I was worried I wouldn’t find work to do, there were a lot of people and not enough shovels or buckets. But, we started assembly lines and I got really dirty. Although I was feeling sort of sick, I fought it and worked by booty off. I’m already sore but I feel really good knowing that we
did all of this work for the orphanage. The woman who has raised the money for the orphanage showed up. I was so surprised to hear her Kiswahili. It was really good; she talked to the workers and Baba just like she was another Tanzanian. She came to Tanzania a few years ago with CCS and met a woman with an orphanage. She came back a few times to visit and volunteer and is now going to live here for a year. The orphanage currently has seventy eight kids and could have up to a hundred in the new building they are building. The woman was very young, about to go to grad school. I think what she is doing is awesome. Hearing her story makes me want to come back even more. We came home, I took off my filthy close, we ate lunch, washed clothes and shoes, took showers and I wrote in my journal. Today was a good day.
Everyone worked hard at the building site because we were so inspired to help, but you should all know that Syd went above and beyond. Several of the other volunteers called her a “rock star”
because she toted heavy buckets of concrete for hours and helped shovel sand and gravel. She also bare-handedly started digging into the pile of downed trees and passed clumps of roots, tree trunks, and bunches of leaves down the line to the new trash location. She was mud from head to inside her shoes. Trying to rescue her clothes and shoes took some doing too; we scrubbed with a brush and after 3 or 4 washes, the water was almost clean!
Tonight while writing this note, we heard the monkeys in the trees, very close to us. I asked Primo, our chef, if the animal making the noise was a lemur. He said no, it was a bush baby. I asked if it was 1 or more. He smiled and said many. Dave, Syd and I went out to the avocado tree and turned on our best flashlight trying to see them. Several avocados fell and things got very quiet. So, no luck yet spotting the wildlife right here in our yard.
All in all it was a very rewarding day. I’m so glad we had the opportunity to help.
Love
to you all,
Sharon, Sydney and Dave
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