It has been a few weeks since I have had the time to sit and reflect on my time here. So much has happened and I have been so busy. If I am not at school I am at the hospital and if I am not at the hospital I am at the market buying things for families I am sponsoring. It takes a lot out of me but it's what keeps me going every day. Before I left for Zanzibar I didn't even want to go because I didn't know how I was going to leave the families for a week. Who was going to visit them? Who was going to check on them? I would miss them and when I told them I was leaving for break they seemed confused. I hated that feeling. Mama Minza has called me so many times this week to tell me how much she misses me and she will put Kulwa on the phone and say "we love you." Now that right there makes me melt. I absolutely love the relationships I have formed here, they mean so much to me and I take them very seriously. I never make promises I can't keep and I always visit my friends as much as I can. I don't want to let them down.
One of the best relationships I have formed is with Mama Minza's little baby Kulwa. He has my heart in so many ways. Every time he sees me he just gets this huge smile on his face and he reaches out for me to hold him. It's been awesome to watch him grow because he is only 15 months. To have started loving him in the hospital when he was so sick with malaria until now when he is so happy and full of life is so awesome. Mama Minza now calls me Mama Kulwa because she knows how much I love him. She td me after break I could take him from the morning til the night, so I could keep him for a full day! That made me so excited! I told her she would have to teach me how to wrap him on my back in order to carry him while I walk like all the other mamas do because babies cry if you try to carry them on your hip here they are just not used to being held that way.
The uji project is doing so great! I hope all of you had a chance to watch my video! If not add me on Facebook and you can see it on my page. The students look forward to the porridge each week and with the help of a few main teachers directing the cook it really runs pretty smooth. I can see the students attention span and energy increase once they have their meal for the rest of the day and that is so important for their studies. Without it on the rest of the days it is like a downward slope, energy level and attention span is high in the morning and then just continues to decrease as the afternoon goes on. It would just be like if you went a whole day without food. You may be sufficient the first few hours of the day but the towards the latter end of the afternoon that is going to change.
My school was supposed to have mid-terms before mid-term break but they didn't have enough money to print the tests for the students so they just decided not to give them. I was pretty shocked at this because we teachers had to turn in our mid-term test and answer key weeks before mid-term but then they decided not to give them.
Many students need textbooks. I think maybe 4 students out of my class of 60 have their own textbook and so many students ask me to get them one for biology. I let them borrow mine (I have two) and then the other four students share so well get in groups to share the books.
As for sponsoring families, that project is going wonderful!!! I'm on my 5th family and two other people have donated so that I now can add two more families to make it 7 total families! I'm thinking on ways I can improve sponsorship. Micro start ups and micro financing have been on my mind a lot lately. My piki driver put this in my mind when he told me he wanted to start a car wash business. He asked me if I would help him by the machine to wash the cars and then he wouldn't charge me for my piki rides each day to school until the cost of the machine was paid off. I thought that was such a wonderful idea! Mama Minza asked me if I could give her $50 USD to help her start a canteen/eatery where she sells chapti and Mandazzi on market day so she can make money for her family. I was thinking maybe I could give her the money and then ask for her to pay me half of it back over time once her business gets going. Same with the family in the village that Taylor sponsored. There only source of income which is extremely little is through farming so I can teach them how to start a garden and give them the money for start up seeds. Once the crops grow they can pay me back for the seeds. Each family will be different in means of work but it would be a case by case basis.
One elderly man I visit a lot named Slivanos. He lives alone and is the sweetest man. He takes care of his cattle and keeps his home so clean it is unreal. When I first met him he was wearing shoes with no soles and so many holes in them I don't even know how he kept them on his feet. His pants were all but falling apart but he gave us the only chair he had to sit on and he welcomed us with open arms and a huge smile. He's always building something new when I visit or planting flowers he's found or fruit trees. He warms my heart. I bought him a new pair of shoes and a new pair of pants and now he never takes them off.
Down the road there's another family who expressed to me that they needed glasses. I took them to the hospital and had them get there eyes checked. The wife needs surgery she's developing cataracts but the eye surgeon only comes to my village every 3-4 months so well have to wait to see him but we were able to get the husband some glasses and that was fun to watch because it was as if he got his eye sight back instantly and he couldn't stop smiling.
There was also George. George will always have such a special place in my heart. He came into my school asking each teacher if they would donate money to help him go to advanced level to continue his education. When he got around to me, I had my good friend who teaches English ask him a few questions back and forth in Swahili for me. I found out he was an orphan and for the last 4-5 months he's been walking around town trying to collect money to go to school. I asked him how much he needed to go to school, he told me $150. I told him I would pay it. I went the next day to his village it was about an hour away from mine so a long piki drive. When I arrived his grandparents greeted me and had been preparing food all day waiting for my arrival. Out of all the families I had helped, this family brought me to tears. Both George's parents died when he 3 years old and his grandparents have raised him. They have absolutely nothing. They borrowed plastic chairs and a table just for the day so I would have something to sit on. They sleep on sticks woven together to make a mattress. They told me they were relying on George to get an education so that he could send them money to survive. That was a moment that extremely humbled me, comparing my education to George's education. My parents sent me to school because they wanted me to learn and to be an intelligent individual. George's grandparents are relying on him to go to school so that he then can get a job and provide for not only himself but for them as well. What a contrast. The next day I took George into town and helped him buy all his basic needs to go to A level. Uniform, mattress, plate, bowl, cup, shoes, etc. he won't come home until the end of the year so he lives at his school. George was so grateful for all of my help. A Tanzanian engineer heard about George's story and wanted to help. He paid for George's transport to his school which will take 2 days by bus and for half of his school fees. I was so excited that I could partner with a local Tanzanian in these efforts to provide education.
The hospital has been going well. I have been learning a lot in the maternity ward. I delivered a baby by myself the other week! I cut the umbilical cord, removed the placenta, did all the post delivery care etc. It was awesome!!
There was this one night and the hospital was extremely busy. I was in the maternity ward. All the beds were filled, most women were two to a bed and we were caring for one lady who had eclampsia. She had delivered her baby but her blood pressure was extremely high, she had edema and convulsions. She was extremely sick and we had to seek treatment right away. The nurse was showing me step by step what to do in this situation and what meds to administer etc. Well in the middle of her treatment a terrible accident came in. 27 people were severely injured from a bus accident. The driver turned too sharply and the bus flipped several times. Bodies were stacked on top of one another on the back of two pick up trucks and brought in. Two people were left on the truck when I went outside and I soon realized it was because they were dead. I helped where I could but it was mainly head injuries or lacerations to being thrown around in the bus. I went back to maternity and the nurse was still working on the patient with eclampsia. This mama kept asking her about her baby but the nurse was busy. I asked her what the problem was and told her I could look at her child. She laid the child on the delivery table and uncovered her from the kanga. The child was premature. I touched the child and the child made no response. It was showing no reflexes to anything I was doing. This mama was watching everything I was doing so closely. I grabbed a stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat. There was none. She may not have understood anything I was saying but she did understand that. She looked at me and I just shook my head. Her eyes filled with tears and I called the nurse over to check behind me. The nurse came and said this baby has been dead for a few hours. She told the mama in Swahili that the child was dead and the mom lost it. This was the first time I had seen a Tanzanian woman express emotion at really anything. It was extremely moving and a very difficult night for me to process.
There was one girl who was in the ward the following week who had a deformity that I had never seen before. She could not move at all by herself. The only thing she could do was move her head side to side. She had very bad bed sores that needed to be treated because her parents don't change her positions a lot like they should. All I could think though is why is she in the maternity ward? Did they run out of space in another ward? This doesn't make sense. Come to find out she had given birth to a child just the day before. How? By Caesarean section obviously and the child was 100% healthy, It honestly was a miracle. The parents will have to take care of the child and raise it for all of it's life but the child survived. All of the nurses and I were wondering how did this girl manage to get pregnant? She can only turn her head on her own, something isn't adding up. One nurse and I called the girl's mother into the nurses station and begin to ask her some questions. Here's what we found out: Her parents both are farmers so they would leaver her all day to plow their land and tend to their crops. When they would leave a older boy down the street would come in and rape her and the leave. This happened about four times. When the mom started to notice signs of pregnancy she just could not believe it. She asked her daughter if anything happened but she always denied it. It wasn't until the mother started asking around her community that she found out about this boy. The boy has now ran away and no one has seen him and the grandfather of the boy sent money when the baby was born. I almost got physically when I heard this story. To think about how this boy would have to do this to her when she cannot move any part of her body...I can't handle it. It's terrible. It's evil.
Dr. Mponya texted me that week and told me to hurry to the hospital he had a surgery he wanted me to assist with. I got there and it was a woman who had ovarian cysts that needed to be removed. They had found the cysts by ultrasound. When we cut her open there were no cysts anywhere. Dr. Mponya searched everywhere and could not find anywhere. So the conclusion was that the person in x-ray read the ultrasound wrong. We just put this woman through serious surgery and in the conditions were in she definitely has an infection now that is 100% sure. For what? For nothing. They decided to treat her "psychologically" meaning they told her they removed cysts and all is well now. They just gave her antibiotics for the infection. That was pretty eye opening for me to see.
When I was leaving one night I passed a little girl sitting alone on a bench in the hallway of the hospital. I tried to tell her hello but she just looked at me with eyes that were saying, "Help me." Something was up, I felt it. A kanga was wrapped around her elbow and she was so silent. I sat beside of her and soon realized she didn't know any Swahili and was Sukuma. The main tribe around my village. Finally a man walked up which was her father and he was acting out what happened to me. A dog bit her. He unwrapped the kanga and half of her arm was missing. I kid you not. How was this child around 4-5 years old sitting there in complete silence. She wasn't making a peep. The doctor was nowhere to be found. I immediately went to find him and stayed with them until they were seen. They were admitted and I visited her until I left for midterm break.
Mama Minza even had to go to the hospital twice because of her leg. I went to visit her one week and she lifted up her kanga to show me that her leg was bothering her. Ummm yeah I had a minor freak attack. It was a massive infection/ulcer due to a previous burn when she was a child. It was right in the area where you bend your leg so I can imagine how much it hurt every time she tried to walk. I got my piki driver to take her to the hospital and I met them there. I had Dr. Mponya look at her leg and he agreed that it was definitely sepsis. They had to clean it out pretty good. Mama Minza held my hand and cried. They bandaged her up and they gave us a script with some antibiotics and some cream for her leg.
Those are all the major events at the hospital nowadays I haven't been able to form any lasting relationships like I did with Kulwa and Doto but I am still trying every day.
The new thing around my house is that a lot of the younger kids want to come over as soon as they see me walking home to learn English. At first they came over just to hang out but then I passed out paper and markers to all the kids and they thought it was their lucky day! They were drawing all sorts of objects and wanting me to write the English word. I thought that was so neat that they wanted to learn so we started it do it more frequently and more kids would come each day. Now I bring out chairs and our plastic tables and as many kids that can fit squeeze together to write and draw. Haleigh Treutel sent paint pens for the kids and they absolutely loved this!! It was so interesting to me how much they lack creativity because they are not given the opportunity growing up to explore it, by doing arts and crafts or looking at picture books, reading stories, using their imagination, etc. I taught all of the kids how to use the paint first and I had about 15 kids so they were a task to manage. Then I said "Okay everyone draw a picture, anything you want!" I just started drawing mine not paying attention because hey I love to paint too! I drew clouds and grass and a big green tree. I look over and every child is copying my picture. It's like they can't just think of something on their own to draw, they really struggle using their imagination. They are so used to bring told what to do all of the time. I bought an Oxford Primary English exercise book because the kids have been asking me for one and I also bought a book I can read to them where one side is in Swahili and one side is in English! So we can do some exercises together and then have story time, the kids will absolutely love that!! All of these kids are in primary school so they are little ones!
I left Friday to go to Zanzibar, on Monday I was in the hospital again with giardia cysts. It's a type of parasite. It never ends with the sickness. I was well enough to travel to Zanzibar, but don't let the pictures fool you I was pretty sick there too. Zanzibar was awesome!! I wasn't going to let sickness ruin my trip, a little bit of sunshine and ocean will make anyone feel better, right? I went with my friend Abby. She teaches in Mtwara which is about ten hours south of Dar es Salaam so the total opposite direction of where I am. But it was so nice to meet in the middle and spend time with her for a week! She is such a sweet girl! Let me tell you we did a whole lot of nothing and I loved every second it. I think I am going to turn into chai tea we drank so much of it each day! We loved the markets in Stone Town. We bought lots of elephant pants and then wore them for the rest of the week so I don't even know why I packed other clothes to wear! We looked like we were walking straight out of a Bollywood movie haha. The guesthouse we stayed in was perfect for us. There was hardly anyone on the beach and it was very quiet, everything we wanted. We met lots of locals and their were lots of Germans there believe it or not so we met two German girls that were really cool. They had just finished up volunteering for 3 months at an orphanage in Uganda so we went to dinner with them one night and shared stories with one another. We snorkeled one day out at an island and got to hold starfish and then we swam with the sea turtles another day! I would love to volunteer helping at this rehab facility I love sea turtles so much. They are such fascinating creatures to learn about. We also got a $20 massage which I was pumped about on one day when it was a little rainy out. So other than that we say and drank lots of tea and reflected on our time so far as teachers and as volunteers. It was nice to hear about Abby's time in a different region and laugh about her stories as were both experiencing the same feelings and going through a lot of the same struggles whether it be with our students or with day to day life. I was hesitant to go on break, I didn't want to leave the families behind and my village behind, I felt guilty in a way. Especially when you leave the village and the prices sky rocket and I feel so guilty even ordering food somewhere because all I can think about is how I can be giving that money to them instead of wasting it. But people have told me that it is important in these cases to try and separate myself the best I can. It was important for me to take a break for week. Try to separate myself so I can let my mind rest and then return feeling fresh and healthy again. I tried but I'm not going to tell you it was easy. I'm excited to get back and to see my friends. I miss them and I hope they missed me just as much.
One of the best relationships I have formed is with Mama Minza's little baby Kulwa. He has my heart in so many ways. Every time he sees me he just gets this huge smile on his face and he reaches out for me to hold him. It's been awesome to watch him grow because he is only 15 months. To have started loving him in the hospital when he was so sick with malaria until now when he is so happy and full of life is so awesome. Mama Minza now calls me Mama Kulwa because she knows how much I love him. She td me after break I could take him from the morning til the night, so I could keep him for a full day! That made me so excited! I told her she would have to teach me how to wrap him on my back in order to carry him while I walk like all the other mamas do because babies cry if you try to carry them on your hip here they are just not used to being held that way.
The uji project is doing so great! I hope all of you had a chance to watch my video! If not add me on Facebook and you can see it on my page. The students look forward to the porridge each week and with the help of a few main teachers directing the cook it really runs pretty smooth. I can see the students attention span and energy increase once they have their meal for the rest of the day and that is so important for their studies. Without it on the rest of the days it is like a downward slope, energy level and attention span is high in the morning and then just continues to decrease as the afternoon goes on. It would just be like if you went a whole day without food. You may be sufficient the first few hours of the day but the towards the latter end of the afternoon that is going to change.
My school was supposed to have mid-terms before mid-term break but they didn't have enough money to print the tests for the students so they just decided not to give them. I was pretty shocked at this because we teachers had to turn in our mid-term test and answer key weeks before mid-term but then they decided not to give them.
Many students need textbooks. I think maybe 4 students out of my class of 60 have their own textbook and so many students ask me to get them one for biology. I let them borrow mine (I have two) and then the other four students share so well get in groups to share the books.
As for sponsoring families, that project is going wonderful!!! I'm on my 5th family and two other people have donated so that I now can add two more families to make it 7 total families! I'm thinking on ways I can improve sponsorship. Micro start ups and micro financing have been on my mind a lot lately. My piki driver put this in my mind when he told me he wanted to start a car wash business. He asked me if I would help him by the machine to wash the cars and then he wouldn't charge me for my piki rides each day to school until the cost of the machine was paid off. I thought that was such a wonderful idea! Mama Minza asked me if I could give her $50 USD to help her start a canteen/eatery where she sells chapti and Mandazzi on market day so she can make money for her family. I was thinking maybe I could give her the money and then ask for her to pay me half of it back over time once her business gets going. Same with the family in the village that Taylor sponsored. There only source of income which is extremely little is through farming so I can teach them how to start a garden and give them the money for start up seeds. Once the crops grow they can pay me back for the seeds. Each family will be different in means of work but it would be a case by case basis.
One elderly man I visit a lot named Slivanos. He lives alone and is the sweetest man. He takes care of his cattle and keeps his home so clean it is unreal. When I first met him he was wearing shoes with no soles and so many holes in them I don't even know how he kept them on his feet. His pants were all but falling apart but he gave us the only chair he had to sit on and he welcomed us with open arms and a huge smile. He's always building something new when I visit or planting flowers he's found or fruit trees. He warms my heart. I bought him a new pair of shoes and a new pair of pants and now he never takes them off.
Down the road there's another family who expressed to me that they needed glasses. I took them to the hospital and had them get there eyes checked. The wife needs surgery she's developing cataracts but the eye surgeon only comes to my village every 3-4 months so well have to wait to see him but we were able to get the husband some glasses and that was fun to watch because it was as if he got his eye sight back instantly and he couldn't stop smiling.
There was also George. George will always have such a special place in my heart. He came into my school asking each teacher if they would donate money to help him go to advanced level to continue his education. When he got around to me, I had my good friend who teaches English ask him a few questions back and forth in Swahili for me. I found out he was an orphan and for the last 4-5 months he's been walking around town trying to collect money to go to school. I asked him how much he needed to go to school, he told me $150. I told him I would pay it. I went the next day to his village it was about an hour away from mine so a long piki drive. When I arrived his grandparents greeted me and had been preparing food all day waiting for my arrival. Out of all the families I had helped, this family brought me to tears. Both George's parents died when he 3 years old and his grandparents have raised him. They have absolutely nothing. They borrowed plastic chairs and a table just for the day so I would have something to sit on. They sleep on sticks woven together to make a mattress. They told me they were relying on George to get an education so that he could send them money to survive. That was a moment that extremely humbled me, comparing my education to George's education. My parents sent me to school because they wanted me to learn and to be an intelligent individual. George's grandparents are relying on him to go to school so that he then can get a job and provide for not only himself but for them as well. What a contrast. The next day I took George into town and helped him buy all his basic needs to go to A level. Uniform, mattress, plate, bowl, cup, shoes, etc. he won't come home until the end of the year so he lives at his school. George was so grateful for all of my help. A Tanzanian engineer heard about George's story and wanted to help. He paid for George's transport to his school which will take 2 days by bus and for half of his school fees. I was so excited that I could partner with a local Tanzanian in these efforts to provide education.
The hospital has been going well. I have been learning a lot in the maternity ward. I delivered a baby by myself the other week! I cut the umbilical cord, removed the placenta, did all the post delivery care etc. It was awesome!!
There was this one night and the hospital was extremely busy. I was in the maternity ward. All the beds were filled, most women were two to a bed and we were caring for one lady who had eclampsia. She had delivered her baby but her blood pressure was extremely high, she had edema and convulsions. She was extremely sick and we had to seek treatment right away. The nurse was showing me step by step what to do in this situation and what meds to administer etc. Well in the middle of her treatment a terrible accident came in. 27 people were severely injured from a bus accident. The driver turned too sharply and the bus flipped several times. Bodies were stacked on top of one another on the back of two pick up trucks and brought in. Two people were left on the truck when I went outside and I soon realized it was because they were dead. I helped where I could but it was mainly head injuries or lacerations to being thrown around in the bus. I went back to maternity and the nurse was still working on the patient with eclampsia. This mama kept asking her about her baby but the nurse was busy. I asked her what the problem was and told her I could look at her child. She laid the child on the delivery table and uncovered her from the kanga. The child was premature. I touched the child and the child made no response. It was showing no reflexes to anything I was doing. This mama was watching everything I was doing so closely. I grabbed a stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat. There was none. She may not have understood anything I was saying but she did understand that. She looked at me and I just shook my head. Her eyes filled with tears and I called the nurse over to check behind me. The nurse came and said this baby has been dead for a few hours. She told the mama in Swahili that the child was dead and the mom lost it. This was the first time I had seen a Tanzanian woman express emotion at really anything. It was extremely moving and a very difficult night for me to process.
There was one girl who was in the ward the following week who had a deformity that I had never seen before. She could not move at all by herself. The only thing she could do was move her head side to side. She had very bad bed sores that needed to be treated because her parents don't change her positions a lot like they should. All I could think though is why is she in the maternity ward? Did they run out of space in another ward? This doesn't make sense. Come to find out she had given birth to a child just the day before. How? By Caesarean section obviously and the child was 100% healthy, It honestly was a miracle. The parents will have to take care of the child and raise it for all of it's life but the child survived. All of the nurses and I were wondering how did this girl manage to get pregnant? She can only turn her head on her own, something isn't adding up. One nurse and I called the girl's mother into the nurses station and begin to ask her some questions. Here's what we found out: Her parents both are farmers so they would leaver her all day to plow their land and tend to their crops. When they would leave a older boy down the street would come in and rape her and the leave. This happened about four times. When the mom started to notice signs of pregnancy she just could not believe it. She asked her daughter if anything happened but she always denied it. It wasn't until the mother started asking around her community that she found out about this boy. The boy has now ran away and no one has seen him and the grandfather of the boy sent money when the baby was born. I almost got physically when I heard this story. To think about how this boy would have to do this to her when she cannot move any part of her body...I can't handle it. It's terrible. It's evil.
Dr. Mponya texted me that week and told me to hurry to the hospital he had a surgery he wanted me to assist with. I got there and it was a woman who had ovarian cysts that needed to be removed. They had found the cysts by ultrasound. When we cut her open there were no cysts anywhere. Dr. Mponya searched everywhere and could not find anywhere. So the conclusion was that the person in x-ray read the ultrasound wrong. We just put this woman through serious surgery and in the conditions were in she definitely has an infection now that is 100% sure. For what? For nothing. They decided to treat her "psychologically" meaning they told her they removed cysts and all is well now. They just gave her antibiotics for the infection. That was pretty eye opening for me to see.
When I was leaving one night I passed a little girl sitting alone on a bench in the hallway of the hospital. I tried to tell her hello but she just looked at me with eyes that were saying, "Help me." Something was up, I felt it. A kanga was wrapped around her elbow and she was so silent. I sat beside of her and soon realized she didn't know any Swahili and was Sukuma. The main tribe around my village. Finally a man walked up which was her father and he was acting out what happened to me. A dog bit her. He unwrapped the kanga and half of her arm was missing. I kid you not. How was this child around 4-5 years old sitting there in complete silence. She wasn't making a peep. The doctor was nowhere to be found. I immediately went to find him and stayed with them until they were seen. They were admitted and I visited her until I left for midterm break.
Mama Minza even had to go to the hospital twice because of her leg. I went to visit her one week and she lifted up her kanga to show me that her leg was bothering her. Ummm yeah I had a minor freak attack. It was a massive infection/ulcer due to a previous burn when she was a child. It was right in the area where you bend your leg so I can imagine how much it hurt every time she tried to walk. I got my piki driver to take her to the hospital and I met them there. I had Dr. Mponya look at her leg and he agreed that it was definitely sepsis. They had to clean it out pretty good. Mama Minza held my hand and cried. They bandaged her up and they gave us a script with some antibiotics and some cream for her leg.
Those are all the major events at the hospital nowadays I haven't been able to form any lasting relationships like I did with Kulwa and Doto but I am still trying every day.
The new thing around my house is that a lot of the younger kids want to come over as soon as they see me walking home to learn English. At first they came over just to hang out but then I passed out paper and markers to all the kids and they thought it was their lucky day! They were drawing all sorts of objects and wanting me to write the English word. I thought that was so neat that they wanted to learn so we started it do it more frequently and more kids would come each day. Now I bring out chairs and our plastic tables and as many kids that can fit squeeze together to write and draw. Haleigh Treutel sent paint pens for the kids and they absolutely loved this!! It was so interesting to me how much they lack creativity because they are not given the opportunity growing up to explore it, by doing arts and crafts or looking at picture books, reading stories, using their imagination, etc. I taught all of the kids how to use the paint first and I had about 15 kids so they were a task to manage. Then I said "Okay everyone draw a picture, anything you want!" I just started drawing mine not paying attention because hey I love to paint too! I drew clouds and grass and a big green tree. I look over and every child is copying my picture. It's like they can't just think of something on their own to draw, they really struggle using their imagination. They are so used to bring told what to do all of the time. I bought an Oxford Primary English exercise book because the kids have been asking me for one and I also bought a book I can read to them where one side is in Swahili and one side is in English! So we can do some exercises together and then have story time, the kids will absolutely love that!! All of these kids are in primary school so they are little ones!
I left Friday to go to Zanzibar, on Monday I was in the hospital again with giardia cysts. It's a type of parasite. It never ends with the sickness. I was well enough to travel to Zanzibar, but don't let the pictures fool you I was pretty sick there too. Zanzibar was awesome!! I wasn't going to let sickness ruin my trip, a little bit of sunshine and ocean will make anyone feel better, right? I went with my friend Abby. She teaches in Mtwara which is about ten hours south of Dar es Salaam so the total opposite direction of where I am. But it was so nice to meet in the middle and spend time with her for a week! She is such a sweet girl! Let me tell you we did a whole lot of nothing and I loved every second it. I think I am going to turn into chai tea we drank so much of it each day! We loved the markets in Stone Town. We bought lots of elephant pants and then wore them for the rest of the week so I don't even know why I packed other clothes to wear! We looked like we were walking straight out of a Bollywood movie haha. The guesthouse we stayed in was perfect for us. There was hardly anyone on the beach and it was very quiet, everything we wanted. We met lots of locals and their were lots of Germans there believe it or not so we met two German girls that were really cool. They had just finished up volunteering for 3 months at an orphanage in Uganda so we went to dinner with them one night and shared stories with one another. We snorkeled one day out at an island and got to hold starfish and then we swam with the sea turtles another day! I would love to volunteer helping at this rehab facility I love sea turtles so much. They are such fascinating creatures to learn about. We also got a $20 massage which I was pumped about on one day when it was a little rainy out. So other than that we say and drank lots of tea and reflected on our time so far as teachers and as volunteers. It was nice to hear about Abby's time in a different region and laugh about her stories as were both experiencing the same feelings and going through a lot of the same struggles whether it be with our students or with day to day life. I was hesitant to go on break, I didn't want to leave the families behind and my village behind, I felt guilty in a way. Especially when you leave the village and the prices sky rocket and I feel so guilty even ordering food somewhere because all I can think about is how I can be giving that money to them instead of wasting it. But people have told me that it is important in these cases to try and separate myself the best I can. It was important for me to take a break for week. Try to separate myself so I can let my mind rest and then return feeling fresh and healthy again. I tried but I'm not going to tell you it was easy. I'm excited to get back and to see my friends. I miss them and I hope they missed me just as much.
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