I was informed that my luggage didn’t make it on the flight with me to London from Nairobi…. argh, another day of bad luck at the airport.
I did a lot of fun things during the last week that I was in Tanzania! I’ll be catching up on those posts when I get back home!
I am a bit behind in my blog, since I am having my last days here in Tanzania, so much has happened the last couple days, so stay tuned for more…
I’ll be spending Monday traveling, and should be back to Boston at 8:20pm on Monday!
Tish was supposed to come today, but she couldn’t make it! But she’ll come tomorrow.
I met with Abdullah this morning to work on some product photos, and we left for CCBRT to do some wheelchair work! A wheelchair needed fixing, and a few new KASI members needed to get measured for their new wheelchairs! I got a chance to talk with the KASI officers, and was just so impressed by the success of this organization!
I also got a chance to interview some KASI members as well, and they all gave glowing reviews of the KCMC wheelchairs. Some of the attendees getting new wheelchairs currently have been using old wheelchairs you see at hospitals. Those chairs often limit the users to indoor use, and consequently, these wheelchair users do not travel outside of their home.
It’s really depressing because we often take for granted that we can go outside of our house whenever I want. While there are those here who can’t afford to get a nice wheelchair from KCMC, would have to suffer and be stuck at home all the time because the wheels doesn’t allow them to go around the roads of East Africa.
I had a really good lunch at CCBRT, and I will miss Tanzanian food so much! Abdullah and Fatuma (I think that’s how you spell her name) had to make a trip to town to buy some stuff for camp (medicine, some electronics, and some other stuffs). I went with them to figure out where the local pharmacy was. We had to buy some cipro for a participant at camp, and 10 cipro pills were 1000 Tsh, and no prescription was needed either. There were a ton of other kinds of medicine there too. If cipro was so cheap here, why is medicine so expensive in America?
Tonight Sarah and I are going to get more casava and have dinner at her aunts! I should get ready to go. She just got back from the mosque!
(this post is for July 24th, 2007)
Another early day, and I am ready for another day ahead of me! I wasn’t really so sure what to expect from the KASI training camp, so I was a bit anxious about today.
I met up with Abdullah at KCMC, and we headed to the Kilimanjaro rehabilitation centre, Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT), a few km just outside of town centre.
When we arrived, they had already started their first group meeting, and Abdullah and I introduced ourselves to the participants. I gave a brief intro about what I was doing, but I wasn’t so sure if any of them understood me. It was another moment where I really wished I knew more swahili.
We left the group area for tea time, and I had a brief meeting with Joyce Mayalla, who is the director of this branch of CCBRT in Moshi. I found out a lot more about the current outreach efforts, and I am very impressed by the programs that are running here in the status quo. She was a wonderful lady, and I would like to work with her sometime in the future.
I sat through the grand opening of the camp, and it was interesting! I took a ton of pictures for them. A government official visited as well, and I hope that something good would come out of this at the government level. I hope that KASI will get the funding to run this again next year.
After that, we had lunch at the canteen on the campus of CCBRT. It was so yummy! I met Suki, who is a young lady from Mwenza. I adore her! I exchanged emails with her, and definitely hope to keep in touch with her. She is such a a smart, independent young woman, and certainly someome for younger girls to look up to. She has so much courage in her eyes.
Abdullah gave me a ride to the bike shop that my host family runs! Sarah and I stayed at the shop and closed it down around 4:00pm. We drank a pepsi and ate peanuts! Wehn we were there, we were hassled by con artists asking for donations, and some drunk guy who demanded money. Sarah and I were a little freaked out.
Sarah and I didn’t have our keys, and host mommy was at the mosque! So we wandered around town for a while. We really had to pee, so we stopped by Sarah’s aunt’s house to use the restroom, and talked for a little bit. Sarah’s aunt has a parrot! It’s gray with a red tail. But when I was there, it really didn’t want to talk to me, so it was pretty quiet.
We then walked around a little bit more and met with Sarah’s Friend, Hussein, who works next door at Parkview Inn. He called Sarah’s mom, and his mom to figure out if they were at the mosque still. We sat around for a little bit, and decided that we shouldn’t bother Hussein at work anymore. So we left to go back to town, and met Sarah’s best friend!
We went to eat casava! Oh my god it was so good! It’s a local specialty, and I can’t believe I just got a chance to try it now. Casava is this root that’s is like a potato. I think I have had it in my Terra chips. It was served cooked with some spices and salad on top. Oh man it was delicious! I will have to go again before I leave.
When we were heading back home, Hussein saw us and gave us a ride back to home. I bought more sugarcane! I swear I’d have diabetes if I lived here…
I will miss this place when I leave…
(this post is for July 23rd, 2007)
Man this is going to be a busy week. There is a ton to do, and I need to juggle my time between KCMC and the KASI peer group training camp. I am working on a formal evaluation for the outreach even tso that they can have some feedback about how they are doing, and also give me a chance to do a survey about other topics. Spent some time revising the survey, and it will soon be translated to swahili.
This morning, I met a student working at KCMC from the States, Salman. He is a student from Duke, and is here with other students to fix up broken medical equipment. He brought 5 broken wheelchairs that he found in a closet somewhere, and brought it to the wheelchair workshop to be fixed. He says he works with a program called Engineering World Health through Duke. The staff here at the worksho then spent all morning and fixed up all 5 wheelchairs. Now they can be used again to help transport patients around the hospital!
Then later today, we got a visit by some occupational therapists and apatient at the workshop, wanting to get some cushions made for the wheelchair. The patient is a young child, and has a fairly sever disability. The lack of cushions and support on the wheelchair has caused him to have very bad posture, and the chair is not even suitable for anything more than just transport. I had a chance to talk to the occupational therapist from Norway, Kristin. She tells me that these patients can only afford to have a free wheelchair from these non profit organizations, but none of these wheelchairs from Wheelchair Foundation are properly fitted for them, and feel that these organizations should support the local wheelchair workshops instead.
The wheelchair being used by the patient was distributed by Community Foundation Trust in Arusha, and the wheelchairs were donated from Wheelchair Foundation. It is a red 4-wheeler foldable wheelchair with fairly rugged wheels. While what they are doing is great, giving away wheelchairs for free, but having an improperly fitted wheelchair can do more harm than good.
So I wanted figure out if there was a way to change this situation, and try to get the sponsors for these wheelchairs to invest in these locally made wheelchairs instead. What we found out about these wheelchairs is that Wheelchair Foundation actually earns a large profit by cutting costs and receiving a good amount of money from donors to get these wheelchairs distributed. It seems like there is a substantial amount of money involved, and I am not so sure how I can go about improving this situation.
Abdullah dropped me off in town, and on the way back, we dropped by his house for lunch. His wife made us Pilau! It was so good. I told Abdullah about what I thought of Wheelchair Foundation, and he told me that Motivation had successfully convinced the British government to not allow Wheelchair Foundations to import those chairs.
Ahh this is a big mess, and I should really think about what I can do to change this. I am not so sure if I would be able to convince Wheelchair Foundation to stop doing what they are doing, since there is a such a large money interest involved in this situation…
In town, I stopped by Dr. Nyumbi’s office to talk about the survey I had drafted! He really liked it, and was glad that I had taken this opportunity to help make a formal evaluation of the program. There will be quite a bit of work to be done to analyze the data, and will need to solicit some help from KASI and Abdullah to help make a report from the surveys. I hope to publish the findings later online (if appropriate).
I was done for the day, and returned home to hang out with my host family! Christina had spent all day planning her trip to Zanzibar, and she finally got her tickets to go! I am very excited for her.
Ahh… I think I have been eating way too much here.
(This post is for July 21st and 22nd)
Christina and I woke up at 5:30am to get ready for the safari! We stood outside Parkview Inn (the hotel next to our house) to wait for the tour operator to come, Amani. Just some side info, I had a really tough time finding reviews for these tour operators, so I am going to try to give a review about my experience. I hope that this would be useful for those who plan on going to a safari.
I took a week to shop around for a budget safari, and got various kinds of quotes. I am also going during high season, and petro prices have gone up, so everything was expensive (even park fees have gone up). I was able to finally find a place that would let me go for a 2 day safari for $290. So what does that include? Well it’s an all inclusive price, so that includes food and lodging and transport and everything. The safari I booked was a group safari, so we expected to join others on this trip.
The itinerary for going on the safari was to get transport from Arusha to Ngorongoro Crater, and spend a day driving around the crater. Lunch box was included, and we would picnic at the crater. Before sundown, we would be required to leave the national park, and spend the night at a hotel just outside of the Lake Manyare National Park. Dinner is included as well, and would be served by a hotel in the area. We would then go to Lake Manyara in the morning, and spend the day there. Lunch box is also included for this day, and we left Lake Manyara around 2pm, and got back to Moshi around 6pm.
Our tour guide for the first day was Emanuel and for the second day, it was Herbert. I think that we definitely preferred Herbert as a tour guide, because he was more talkable. But these tour guides don’t always understand what we are trying to say, so sometimes it’s hard to communicate with them. But they were accomodating in terms of stopping for us to take pictures and stuff.
On the first day, our car had 6 people! Christina and me, a couple who just graduated from BU (Graham and Megan, yeah, what a small world!), and two Japanese guys from Osaka. We were very happy with our tour group, because we were afraid that we would get some really obnoxious tourists in our group. Turns out Graham and I know a little bit of Japanese, so we tried to speak Japanese to them. Not really so sure if it was well received, but the Japanese guys were very entertaining. They were also amuzed and would love to wave bye to the animals!
The Japanese guys actually only bought a one day safari, so for the second day, it was just the four of us. I woudl have to say that is the best number of people to have in the land cruiser. The food was also great, and they gave us another fairly large lunch box. Overall, Christina and I were very happy with what we paid for. But I think that the safari could’ve been cheaper, and to have cost around ~$250.
The lodge/hotel we stayed at was in a residential area, and it looked like a large house turned into a hotel. We had a bathroom with a western toilet, a mirror, and a large bed with a mosquito net. The place was a bit loud, since people were talking outside all night, but we were comfortable, ad the lodge was very basic.
I don’t want to go into too much details about the trip, and more details will have to til I upload my pictures!
I can’t wait to upload these pictures when I get home! I miss home!
Here I am, catching up on the 20th.
This morning, we woke up early to go to KCMC to meet with Abdullah. We stopped by the KCMC canteen to have a western breakfast with eggs, sausage, eggs, toast, slice of beef, and tea. We really enjoyed our full breakfast and it was only 1900 Tsh!
I presented the marketing guide, the revised KCMC bplan, and a new KCMC presentation to Abdullah. I also showed him a sample business plan for him to learn from. Abdullah realized that he has got quite a bit of work ahead of him! We are still missing some photos for the wheelchairs, so Christina helped me take some product photos at TATCOT.
Abdullah cut the day short, and we returned to town earlier than usual today. Christina and I decided to go around town a bit to help her find an ATM for cash. We did a bit of running around, and turns out she was only able to get out 300,000 Tsh. She has just enough for the safari tomorrow.
Anna made us lunch! We werent’ too hungry but we ate anyways, it was this fried rice + veggies dish. Very very delicious! We ate and got ready to head back to town to burn some time.
We walked to Moshi town market to check out the scene, and went to the tour company to double check that we have sleeping bags for tomorrow safari camping trip. Turns out we will be joined by two others from Arusha! I hope they are friendly.
The market was a bit boring, since we weren’t really there to buy any fresh vegetables or fruits. So we just passed along, and went to buy some snacks for tomorrow from the supermarket. I bought some cookies and salty snacks, and stopped by a convenient store to buy some candy and gum. I will be so happy tomorrow when I have candy on the trip!
We went to the Coffee House and found out that it was where all the tourists hang out. We bought a large pot of tea (600 Tsh), and sat there for a couple of hours just to chat and burn time until we felt like going home. The Coffee House has a very cute kitten there!
Nothing really happened today, so we came home and just worked on the computer to catch up on blogging and do some more writing.
Anna spent the whole afternoon making kaboabs, and we had some with chutney. It was so yummy! I love the food here.
Christina and I were hanging out for a while and packed up for the safari! We found out that we would get transported to Arusha through a shuttle, and would be picked up by the private car later in Arusha. Ahhh… 6am to meet for the shuttle.. it’s so early.
Here are some more blog posts to come…
1. Around Moshi Town on July 20th
2. Safari on July 21st and 22nd
3. Back to work at KCMC on July 23rd
4. First day at KASI peer group training camp on July 24th
Since this computer is a bit too slow for me to get my word document loaded on here, you will just have to wait til I get time to type them up….
(updated this post on the 24th… but this post is actually about the 19th…)
The internet has been flaking out so much, so sorry for not being as quick about blogging as I used to be… But I am catching up for it now.
The day in Arusha and being locked out was very tiring. Even though I was really tired, I haven’t been able to sleep very well. For the past week, I have been waking up at 4am or 5am and I am not sure why. I can usually fall back asleep, but I really don’t know what’s waking me up. Perhaps it’s the roosters. I finally folled out of bed around 7am to get back to work on the KCMC stuff.
Today we are returning to Moshi Village! Tish and Christina would be coming from Arusha, and we would be heading to KCMC on the daladal together from Moshi town. It usually takes about an hour and a half to get here from Arusha, so when they left around 8am, they arrived around 9:30. Christina is officially moving to Moshi to stay with me at the host family’s house, so we went to drop off her luggage, and we went back to the bus terminal to go to KCMC.
After another cramped daladala ride later, we arrived at KCMC! Christina was intrigued about Moshi, but honestly the town is quite boring, and the scenery is certainly not as good as Arusha. We stopped by the KCMC store to get some drinks, and I got this really cute can of soda called Rubicon! It was a sparkling mango flavored soda. The name Rubicon totally reminded me of my little sister, and I wish she was here! The soda is really good too! I think my little sister would’ve liked it. It also came in guava, I should try that as well. Christina bought some popcorn, but she didn’t like it very much.
We got to the workshop, and Abdullah was at TATCOT, so we waited for little bit for Abdullah to get back, and introduced Christina to the staff at KCMC Wheelchair Workshop. Abdullah finally arrived, and we took off in his car to head to the village to visit Peter again! Abdullah likes his bass really loud in the car, and its really hard for us to hear the music in the back seat. But we talked about music and 10kms later, we arrived at Peter’s house.
Peter was so happy to see us! We did another interview, and we were also joined by kids from the school right by Peter’s house. Christina gave them popcorn, and they all kindly shared with each other.
We had an interview with Peter, and he gave us wonderful feedback on the mechanisms of the new design that Tish and Wenxian had worked on. He said that there were a few stability issues, and would like for the parts to be manufactured better for safety. But overall, he was very happy with the design, and would like to have it on his chair! He said that this chair would make it easier for him to get on the daladala, and was very simple to use. He tells us that he needed no help to fold the 3rd wheel on his chair.
Peter also gave us feedback on the KCMC wheelchair design, and said that the arm rests were a bit too high, and makes it hard for someone to bend over on the sides.
Christina was interested to know what kind of things Peter does for a living. He tells us that he repairs kitchenware, umbrellas, and radios! Christina also asked what Peter would like to change about Tanzania. Peter answered and said that he would like Tanzania to have a better economy. He explained that it is hard to give his ideas in society, because the opportunities aren’t given to him, especially when he is disabled (not sure if I am making any sense here trying to explain this…). So he was very happy that we had come to him for input on this wheelchair, and to be able to contribute! He would like to see more job opportunities created for the disabled.
Abdullah added that the group job training KASI once did wasn’t too successful, but he believes that individual job training would be nice if they can have a small business at their home, such as repairing electronics and radios. That really interested me because I would love to come bakc and give Peter a set of tools so that he can ake a living from his own home. When we went to Peter’s hosue down the small road, he showed us this metal stick that he uses to fix radio. It’s just a metal stick with a somewhat shape end. I am really not so sure how he uses it to fix anything. I wish I had my pliers with me so that I could give it to him!
I would really like to come back some time and think of ways to help these individuals with vocational training and materials to help them run a small business at home. Actually, sometimes people don’t need vocational training, because they are often self taught! But it would be nice oif I could help them set up a small shop and work area in their home, a work table and a set of tools for example, would make a huge difference in their lives.
Our visit with Peter was over, and it was very sad to say goodbye. He was such a cool guy, and he is definitely on the top of the list of peopel to talk to for feedback the next time our class visits Tanzania!
And it was time to visit Abdullah’s house! Abdullah had invited us to his house to learn how to cook Tanzanian food. This was very important because Tish is now dating an Tanzanian, and she doesn’t know how to cook! After a short drive from KCMC, we arrived at Abdullah’s house! Oh it was such a beautiful house, and of course, we were greeted by the oh-so-wonderful Fatima, Abdullah’s wife! She gae us a changa (a traditional Tanzanian wrap around the waist for women) to wear so that we would be just like Tanzanian women!
Abdullah’s house has a beautiful lot! He has a ton of chickens and chicks! I couldnt’ resist but to take a picture of the chickens. I told him that I used to have two chickens in Seattle, and they were all in shock! The chicks really reminded me of my chickens. Abdullah’s lot also grew bananas and corn! It’s kind of like my yard at home, except my father grows fruit trees and onions and potatoes! Abdullah tells us that he can see Mt. Kilimanjaro from his house, but the clouds are covering it again.
We were invited to some mango + passion fruit juice (oh it was so yummy!), and we started to prepare the raw ingredients for the food! Abdullah joked around and said that we were his four wives (Fatima, Tish, Christina, and me). Tish prepared tomato sauce. Christina prepared carrots. I prepared chopped cabbage. Tish also learned how to prepare coconut milk! We used shredded coconuts, and she had to squeeze out the milk!
Fatima was a wonderful cooking teacher, and taught all of us how to make the food. We had this dish with meat and collards, and another dish with cabbage, carrots and meat. We also made ugali (maize flour dough like mass).
After the food was done, we were invited to go into Abdullah’s house (we were cooking outside of the house on coal stoves). His house is a very cute place. I would definitely live in a house like Abdullah’s. Abdullah taught us how to eat it like Tanzanians — with bare hands!
(Host mother needs to use the computer… to be continued, as I need to type this up from my laptop to this computer… so glad to be finally catching up on blogging!)
—— Finishing up this post ——-
So to eat the food, you are supposed to take the ugali and make it into a ball, and use it to scoop up some of the other food on the plat. we were offered so much food!!! All of us stuffed ourselves with this food, and I wanted to play around with my food to make it more fun to eat. Makeing the little balls of ugali really reminded me of sushi and I made a bunch of little balls, and put the veggies on top. They actually looked very cute! Christina took a picture of my Tanzanian sushi! Tish saw them and couldn’t stop laughing. I think tha the food must’ve drugged her, she couldn’t stop laughing at my Asian fusion ugali!
We were so full, and stayed at Abdullah’s hosue for a little to let the food digest. I almost wanted to throw up since I ate so much, and the ugali was certainly expanding in my stomach. So I walked around the house for a little, and definitely felt much better. Fatima insisted that Tish should have a small rest on the guest bed since we were so full! I dont’ know how Abdullah and Samson does it, their ugali was like 3 times larger than ours! We sat around for a little bit and watched EATV (which is like MTV for East Africa). A ton of American Hip Hop music videos came on, and also there were music videos of East African music (like bongo flavor and stuff). There was also this TV program on that channel where people post their interests and their personal profile on TV. It was sort of weird…
Oh, and Tish asked for wedding pictures of Abdullah and Fatima! Fatima found the pictures and we all checked out pictures of them when they were younger! Tish and I both agreed that he kind of looked like Taye Diggs (when Abdullah was younger and much skinnier). Now I think Fatima has spoiled him with too much of her wonderful cooking!
Time was 4:30pm, and it was time to leave Abdullah’s house so that we can get Tish back to Arusha by nightfall. I am going to miss Fatima, she is so sweet. Abdullah dropped us back off in town, and we returned home. I did even more work when I got home, since we don’t have a car to go out at night. We were so full from the food we didn’t even eat dinner. Christina and I discovered that we have very similar eating habits! We are both the type that love to eat when we are bored, even when we aren’t hungry! So we snacked on some oranges and they were really yummy!
We were exhausted, and called it a night around midnight.
I am a bit behind in blogging because the internet was out, and I was on a safari this weekend!
I have my blog entries on a word document though, so stay tuned!
