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Published: August 22nd 2007
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Tengeru Market
Bariki (aka Don Cheadle) and I at the market. Tengeru Market
This is the largest market in the region and takes place Wednesday and Saturday. It has two sections; one for food and the other is pretty much anything you could imagine from first and second hand clothes, hardware, local medicine, shoes, etc. People come from all over the region to buy and sell items. The vendors don't like you take their picture so Michelle and I kept our camera around our neck at our hip and just kept clicking and hoping for the best. Bariki, our guide/now buddy, also said if you pose for a picture together and the sellers just “happen to be in the background”, that's ok (hence the picture of Bariki and I). Michelle and I have a goal to get a picture of a women carrying a bunch of bananas on her head. It’s an incredible sight. I can’t imagine how much that weighs and how they can balance such an awkward item and walk at the same time.
St. Lucia Nursing Home and Orphanage
St. Lucia is one of our placement partners and we have about 3 volunteers there. Today we all went to see the center and Zik, one of the directors
B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
LOTS and LOTS of bananas here. at CCS, talked with us about the AIDS pandemic. Zik is SO knowledgeable about what is happening here and the history behind everything. I could listen to him for hours. After he spoke for a while, one of the adult patients came to tell us her story of how she came to be at the center.
Adija, came to Arusha to visit her sister. When she got here, she found out her sister had already moved on. She didn’t have enough money to get back home so she took work helping a woman sell food. This woman also gave her a place to stay. Adija started to feel ill and asked the woman to take her to the hospital but she did not. As Adija started to feel worse, she then just asked for the money she was owed for her work so she could go to the hospital herself. The woman said she did not have money to pay her. Adija went to the hospital and found out she had HIV. Someone at the hospital knew someone at St. Lucia and got her here. She is very grateful because she is getting stronger and had a place to
Tengeru Market
Buying fabric for making sarongs (they don't call it that here, but that's what I'm getting). stay now. Adija is about 30 and has a couple of children back at home. Her family does not know where she is and she has no way to get back to her home town because she has no money. She does not know if her husband and children are infected. Most likely she got infected from her husband. They are Muslim and here they take multiple wives. Her husband currently has two wives.
There are about 10 girls and 10 boys at the facility. There is one girls room, about 5 x 7 ft with 2 twin beds, one boys room, about 8 x 10 ft with 3 twin beds and one room for adults and there is currently one other woman in addition to Adija there. The staff cook in a small room detached from the house using firewood and coals. This is also where they boil all the water they use.
The good news is a volunteer that was placed here last year had funded a new facility that they will be moving into next week. I have not seen it but I hear it is MUCH nicer and larger.
Weather & Fashion
We
all received a little inaccurate information about the weather here. CCS told us it would be hot, but that is NOT the case, and according to locals, it does not get hot until the end of August. It has been very cold here to where I’m wearing socks and sweats with two blankets covering me to sleep. I also am supposed to wear skirts to work to “fit into the culture” but at the same time wear comfortable walking shoes because some days I walk a couple hours on unpaved dusty dirt roads and at the same time stay warm. Let’s just say the Fashion Police would have me in permanent solitary confinement, but now we all just find it funny to see how silly we look every day.
The Loan Collector and Furahini
Shija took me to meet Furahini, one of the orphans who would like to go to school to become a secretary. On the way to her house we stopped at the village chair’s house to meet up with Furahini’s mother, Katerina. Friday is loan collection day for the women’s groups in the village and she was there to pay her weekly payment. The thing I
Jeans and Butchers
The local Butcher shops located in the white building with their family name written above. find funny is the loan collector is this little bitty gal named Veronica. She’s 23 years old, speaks good English and has a sassy whit about her. The other funny thing is people say she “looks like me” because she is light skin (we look nothing alike).
Katerina led us up to her home, located about one hours walk from the main road where our office is located. Shija and I sat and talked with Furahini and Katerina so I could hear their story. Her husband died in 1994, she has seven children and Furahini is the youngest. She would like to see Furahini’s vision of being a secretary realized. She can afford some of the items for school, like the uniform, but cannot afford to pay for the schooling. I did some investigating later to find out that the school would cost about $15 per month and she would probably need 1 - 3 years of school as she has only been to primary school and is now 16 years old. Just stop and think for a moment how fast most of us spend $15 in a day.
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Harry Max
non-member comment
What a profound journey
I've been so wrapped up in my own life that I haven't been able to travel with you until this set of pictures and your write up. $15 dollars a day puts this all into perspective. Wow. Thanks for taking us along in your travels. Love, Harry