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Hello again
Well we finally made it back into Mwanza to get back into civilization haha close enough anyways. we have a cell phone now, so you can call us! it won't cost us anything, even though we thought it might. hopefully it won't cost you a fortune, but i don't care, call us anytime! to call us from canada dial
011 255 786 589 647
the best time to call would be in the afternoons, which is early morning at home. it hardly ever works at night, and we sleep from about 4pm to midnight newfoundland time. i want to hear from everyone and anyone! haha
i'm sure i've forgotten half of what we've done this week, but i'll try to recap nicely.
what a week! we spent a few days in mwanza after the last post, waiting to see if erin and addys bags would show up. addys arrived the next day which was great. sadly, erins have yet to show up. i think we have given up hope by this point. sad, but she has been making do.
so friday last week, addy and i went to the bus station to get tickets and the rest of the crew went to the airport to track down the bags. we bought the tickets, put out bags on the bus, only to have to take them off and wartch the bus drive waway without us because the airport crew didn't make it back iun time!!so addy and i sat at the bus station in the blistering heat (33 and HOT) and spoke to a million people even though we knew no swahili. we think someone tried to buy her from me. hilarious.
so finally the next day we actually get on the bus and go 2 hours to bunda, and then another 40 mins on a dalla dalla (aka very packed van) to the village. we saw all kinds of gorillas in the road, i was VERY happy.
the village is crazy. mostly poor, some farming, some retail (dirty huts on the side of the road selling clothes, some food, fruits, fish (with many flies)... goats, chickens, dogs, cattle all over the place. garbage in teh streets (there is no dump, you just throw your garbage wherever you want).
we are pretty frustrated with our project. well, we were a few days ago and its a bit better now. things in africa move so SLOWLY. it takes forever to do anything, not knowing swahili is kinda brutal too. yoiu hav eto take someone to translate all the time and even some of them aren't the best. but we have two secondary school students with us a lot of the time who we like a lot. Motete (said mo-tay-tay) and Elouise (i don't know how to spell it but sounds like heloise without the h). super nice, real smart, but poor like everyone else. we kinda get the feeling the whole project is a bit of a money grab.
we are not working the clinic, but just going to lots of pointless meetings, and having to pay for all our translators and everything else they do. we had to pay for motete to come to mwanza with us and for his lunch, and for his internet and for his bus to his brothers house. so annoying!! anywasy i will talk more about that later on.
we're going to be teaching at the seventh day adventist school about hiv and aids next week which should be interestin.g we went there for church on saturday. holy cow, 3 hours of church, more than i have gone to in the last 5 years! hahah
most of our days start around 8, and we have chipotes (noit spelleds right(. its like a tortilla. and we have chai tea. thats it! then lunch is around 1, and supper around 830. we have the same thgings for lunch and supper, with \3 or 4 dishes out of rice, beans, greens, meat, potatoes, chips (fries)... no variety, and going from 1 to 830 wioth no food is brutal! jane has decided that iu am the first she is going to eat hehe i called her old.
the weather has been excellent. it is sunny almost every day, and we onlyu saw oine shower of rain last night. its close to 30 in the day, and the sun is HOT. but it cools off nicely at night and in the morning its not more than 15. today was even cooler, except its warmer in mwanza, where its 33 or so every day and HOT HOT HOT! haha but its nice, hopefuylly the weather in newfoundland is nice.... oh wait now what am i thinking. suckers!!
most of hte houses do noit have electricity, and ours is one of those. the sun goes down by 7 and we sit around with a gas lamp and stare at each other all night hehe lots of card games and reading.
we are staying with max who is the mayor of the village and head of zinduka which is the organization we are working with. we thought it was malaika but we are now convinced it doesn't erxcisit. haha its strange, i'll explain when i get home.
but yes, max has a few kids, and 5 adopted kids, and his "girlfriend" mariam also has several kids. so many people around. we are finally learning some of their names. and some swahili. i can count to a million now! haha go me
hmmm what else. right, the toilet is an outhouse, but instead of jsut going styraight down and being able to see where it goes, it all goes out kinda horizontally. its not too bad. the shower is a bucket of water you poor over yourself. but its not too bad, and feels so good after a couple of hot sweaty days. fanta is the best drink ever. we go to Urafiki (the bar) almost every day forr one.
the worst thing about hte bar is that if someone invites, they have to pay. this is great if someone invites you. but the worst is, they can keep ordering rounds nad you can't refuse. well you can but its considered VERY rude. so our first night here, after being so tired and dirty and exhuaseted we thought we'd have a beer. after 2 beers, tyhe 3rd one came and we had to ask if we could take it home. the beers are bigger than at home, and after going like 8 hours since our last plate of rice, we were all half cut and stumbled home to eat supper. it was fun, but its not nice to not have control over how much booze you're going to drink!
so we have managed to avoid that since then.
oh right we are staying at maxs house, and at first there were only 4 beds. the first night colin and i shared a bed. why the two biggest people decieded to share i don't know, but anyways we broke the bed. we woke up around 1am to discover that colin was on top of me and the bed was on quite the tilt. it was pretty funny actually. so each night after that we rotated who slept together and then finally got another bed. the very next night 3 british girls arrived and they are also staying with max. so we had to double up again. god thatw as annoying
but now there are beds fro everyone, even with eric, an american also staying there. but it is pretty packed.
so the animals are kind of annoying. all night long you hear donkeys braying, goats bleating, roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing, dogs barking, little chicks peeping, drunk peopel singing, radios blaring, insects chirping, people snoring, etc etc ertc hgaha but we are finlaly getting used to it. and thank god i brought earplugs!
we went out one day with amos (one of the zinduka guys) to meet with HIV positive people in teh community. it was so sad. they have no moeny, so many kids, and they really have no way to care for themselves or anyone else. most of them asked us for money which was tough b/c there is definately not enough moeny to help everyone. the HIV rate in the village is anywherew from 10-20% or maybe more. but it seems like things are getting better, as last year the government started offering free anti-retroviral drugs. but they have to get tested first (in bunda, an hour away) then get their CD4 cell count done in Musoma (an hnour the other way) and most have no money for transporetation. then they have to go to bunda every month to actually tget the drugs. most of them can m'taoofrd this either so they walk. it takes 2 days each way. like wow crazy. so hopefully our work will help with some of these problems. also there are a few other organizations around that are trying to do things as well. really it's$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ that is the problem. and we have a limited supply of that. its just hard that it seems like our time doesn't mean much here. we kinda thought we would be teachging people about hiv and aids but most people already know all about it, its just putting that knowldege into action, or having the resources (aka $$$) to do it. see a theme here?? but our frustation is slowly easing as we get into the pace of things.
back to the animals, they don't treat dogs very well, we are having a tough time watching them kick and generally mistreat the dogs. poochies is a puppy living at hour hosue and we love him. so cute, and so friendly. but the older dogs won't come near us. everytime you put our your hand they shy away b/c usually the only attention they get is a swift kick in the head. sad. there is also an orphan chick i have called harvey. his mom died and he is all alone! so i fed him some rice, and he sits in my hand and cuddles into my neck. and yes, this is how the bird flu will get back to canada! hahah but we have been using purell like its going out of style, as tehre is no handwashing since there is no running water!
well it feels like i've written a novel and still haven't said half of what we've done and seen. we're staying in mwanza until wednesday soi hopefully i'll get a chance to come on again. i won't be answering too man individual emails since it is slower than dialup (trust me, it took me 45 mins just to READ my emails) but if you can call that would be great!! and sorry for the typos, but itsx taking forever to get all this out and going slower and fixing mistakes is just not an optyion 😊
oh yes, and we won't have as many pictures as we thought, as you have to be very careful with that around here. the africans think that if a white person takes their picture, they will go home to sell it and make money off of it. also, aaron, one of the americans here, took a picture of the landscape and failed to notice an army truck in the distance. they camew and wanted to take him to an army camp! max sorted it asll out but they were still pissed off and came bac kagain a few days later to try to take him away again. so we are being VERY careful wiht out cameras!!
ok miss you all, see you on august 4th (wedding bells for jess and jon!)
peace, adn call us!@!!!!!!
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Ashley
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Poor Puppies!!
How Sad!! :( Wow Jason, Better you then me is all I can say! :p. Just kidding, I'm sure you're having a pretty big life changing experience and are going to come away from this with a whole different perspective on a lot of things! What time is a good time for me to phone?? By the sounds of it probably really late at night/early morning? Normally I would keep telling you to take lots of pictures but since I don't want you to be taken away to an african army camp, please don't :) Take care! Be careful!!!