the start of june

---

Wednesday 6/1 @ 8pm
Today was quite long and frustrating. I started out at the orphanage and that is always fun, but than heading into arusha to try and arrange some meetings regarding supplies of nets and what not, but these people handle business so differently than back home! Nothing gets done here... not because the opportunities are missing, but because of the life choices. There are so many simple things that could happen and make a difference, but everyone is fine with how things are, and if someone wants to change something... than they can go for it. That's it. Adding gutters to the roofs, especially at the orphanage but also everywhere would provide fresh water to the people and the kids (who otherwise drink NO water or anything all day... and when they do get water, its out of a dirty, polluted, nearly still stream or a water pump on the road that pumps such dirty water. It rains a rediculous amount here during the wet season, enough water to take care of the orphanage for a year. Mt. Meru is literally RIGHT here and there is sosososo much water flowing off of there; why is nobody setting up water collection methods from Meru or Kilimanjaro? Just doesn't make sense. I drink massive amounts of water, but I buy bottled water here, so its tough to ration. It's frustrating coming into a place like this with my experiences away from here in developed countries.. there are so many simple solutions, the people just don't feel they need the changes.. so it makes it all a hell of a lot more difficult to "help" becuase I go back to my moral dilemma of whether or not to do something that will help them, or if it crosses into telling them how to live.
Yesterday we started off at the orphanage but left after about an hour with 10 of the kids to do home visits. WOW. what an experience. It changes everything when you acutally see where these kids live. Nearly every kid lives with relatives like aunts or grandmas or great grandmas because their parents have died from HIV/AIDS. The first place that we visited was Angel's house.. its extremely slum-like but she acutally has a mother... it is one dark room connected to about 10 - the size of my bathroom at home. its about 5ftx5ft, a single matress on the ground (which is mud and the place is about 6 inches below ground level so it constantly gets flooded), no electricity or water, and its made of a few pieces of wood that have huge holes. 6 people live there. They pay 5,000 shillings per month for rent and still cant afford it... thats about 3 dollars and 50 cents per month. The family is completely content, they have each other, Angel is getting and education, and they are alive. Thats how it is here, theres no such thing as "want" or having anything more than what you need... its SOOO hard to comprehend becuase I've grown up in a society where there is no such thing as enough... ever.

---