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Published: December 28th 2009
Hello again and Merry Christmas!
We are in Arusha, Tanzania! We left on the 21st, had a two day (unplanned) layover in London (British Airways cancelled two days of flights to Tanzania), and spent Christmas Eve flying on an airplane to Tanzania. (Fortunately, we received free sparkling wine and a turkey dinner onboard!) We arrived to the capital Dar Es Salaam and spent two days there. It was hot hot hot! Yesterday, we jumped on a bus for 11 hours and arrived to lush, cool Arusha.
We met our host family last night; it is a mother and father and three sons (aged 18, 15, and 13). They have been extremely welcoming and speak beautiful English (a good thing too, because we speak about 8 expressions in Swahili right now!). They have a lovely two-story house with several bedrooms and a little patio. They gave us a nice room to ourselves with a functioning mosquito net and there is a thoroughly modern squat toilet. The mother has cooked really tasty meals and the three boys are incredibly helpful and friendly (they don't even complain about their daily set of chores, including mopping the floors).
Today was our
The kids with new soccer t-shirts
We'll be giving the jerseys to the older kids when they arrive next week!first day volunteering with LOHADA. It was a bit wild! As we learned this morning, most of the children are on holiday break for this week, but there are fourteen currently staying with LOHADA because they have no family to return to. They range in ages from 1.5-12 years old. We arrived with all our donations (for which everyone was
extremely grateful and then the people there said "Okay, now they are yours to do whatever you want!" So it was us (the only two volunteers currently there) and fourteen children whose ages span an entire decade.
Fortunately we had all of our new donations and set to coloring coloring books with new crayons, which was a big hit. Their masterpieces are now decorating the wall of the playroom. The little puzzles were a huge hit--none of the children had ever seen a puzzle before. Once we taught them the basics (look at the edges, the shape, the colors, the big picture on the box cover), they really got into it. They worked really hard and really enjoyed finally completing the puzzles.
The children and place itself were touching. The place is very simple and while the children
smile easily, it is not an easy life. Paola was pulled aside by one of the workers, who wanted to show her a medical issue with one of the little boys. He has undescended genitalia and was just dropped off with LOHADA three weeks ago (his physical problem is perhaps the reason he was dropped off), and the workers do not know what to do. We are going to look online to see if there are any medical clinics doing volunteer work in the area, but we would be grateful if any of you have any suggestions on what to do to help him--it would make a huge difference in the quality of his life. On the brighter side, one of the children there, named Sharif, is incredibly bright, speaks beautiful English, and solved his puzzle way ahead of everyone else.
Tomorrow we will be helping with the children again and helping the workers with some administrative issues. We are really excited to be here. We still have two full weeks of volunteer time to work with the children and the organization and we hope to give our best to them all by helping in any way we can.
As a side note, one really neat thing is that whenever people approach us in the street to try and sell us things (like safaris and whatnot), when we tell them we are here volunteering, their whole demeanor changes and they become extremely warm. They tell us thank you and hakuna matata and to let them know if we need help with anything. It really is an amazing reception once they know we are volunteering. Overall, everyone is really friendly.
We hope you are all doing well and have a wonderful end to your 2009.
Well wishes,
Paola and Joe
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augusto Zink
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karibuni kwa Arusha
feliz reviviendo mis propias experiencias de saber que Uds. con el mismo carinio las estaran viviendo Mis bendiciones a Uds. por su voluntariado y que regresen con muchas riquezas espirituales sanos y contentos Augusto