8/19/10

Last Wednesday my friend Jennie arrived from Michigan to stay in Arusha for a month. I love having a familiar face here, it’s really nice to be able to show someone all around town, and introduce to the kids that I have talked about so much. Before picking Jennie up from the airport David and I went out to this restaurant that I had heard about from a few different people. It’s called Zhans Chicken on the Bonnet. By day it is a car repair shop, by night it is a chicken BBQ place. I thought it was a little shady at first and asked David on our way there if I was going to get food poisoning, and he just laughed. As we pulled up we saw huge barbeques on the sidewalk with all kids of meat on it, and tables set outside along the sidewalk. The next thing I noticed was the tables were full of wazungus(white people)! Not something I was expecting, but it made me feel a little better that I wasn’t going to get sick from the food. The first thing you do is walk up to the cook and tell him what kind of meat you want, and how much, then you grab a plate and head to a table full with lots of different salads, potatoes, chips and sauces. You load your plate with whatever you want then go have a seat and they bring your chicken to you when it is ready. The chicken was soooooo good, we don’t get much meat here so it tasted that much better. I will defiantly be taking Jennie to eat there, it’s kind of like one of those great little taverns that has really good food when you would never expect it to, something everyone has to experience, and it definitely gives you some culture.

After eating we headed to the airport where David insisted I drive. I’ve driven a few times in Arusha, but was a little hesitant because the roads are so dark and it’s a long drive out to the airport. I decided it was better for me to drive because Tanzanians drive crazy, so I took the wheel and successfully made it to the airport even though there were a few close calls(just kidding….kinda). Waiting for Jennie in the airport was really exciting, the only times I have been to the airport is when I am coming or going, but I liked this better. Greeting Jennie as she walked out of the gates was really cool, it reminded me of the first time that I stepped foot in Tanzania, and taking in the smells, the people, the environment. On the way back David drove because I didn’t want to have to try and talk to Jennie and concentrate on driving at the same time. There was a lot to talk about so we chatted the whole way back.

Thursday during the day I took Jennie into town to show her around town, go to bank, use the internet etc. We went out to lunch and dinner that day, I made sure to let Jennie know that doesn’t usually happen so don’t get too used to it! Thursday night we went out to a bar in Tanzania with other volunteers, and a girl I met at a meeting named G from Boston. We sang karaoke in a Tanzanian club, it was very interesting (we sang Madonna, Bob Marley, and Toto just to name a few).

Over the weekend Jennie got to meet all the kids that stay at the centre. They were excited to finally meet her because I had been telling them she was coming. It doesn’t take long for the little kids to warm up to volunteers. Within minutes she had this little girl Deborah sitting on her lap, eating a peanut butter sandwich! The older ones take a little bit longer to warm up to strangers, but not nearly as long as kids in the US would take, I think they get used to the fact that they get new volunteers all the time.

We also spent some time searching for the movie Lion King. Ever since coming to Tanzania the first time, I’ve wanted to watch Lion King but never got a chance to. About two weeks ago I found it on a disc in town. When you buy movies here you get one disk with about 10 different movies on it. I bought the one with Lion King and we went to watch it with the kids it stopped working halfway through. So I found it again at another shop and we successfully watched the whole movie with the kids on Sunday. It is so cute watching the kids reactions to movies, especially this one because they throw in a little bit of Swahilli in the movie.

Monday all the volunteers went out to Kisongo to see the kids at Yakini Primary School. Right now the kids are on holiday so there are only about 30 kids staying at the school. For the first hour we each worked individually and read with the kids. I sat with two girls and we read a fantasy book collection. We read Snow White, Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears, Pinocchio and some poems. The two girls I was reading with each took turns to read different paragraphs. They were very strong readers, the teacher in me kept quizzing them on what we were reading, and asking for summaries, the girls answered with much detail!

After reading Jennie, Chelsea(another volunteer) and I found some water balloons and started filling them up for a water balloon fight. We filled up two buckets worth, then got all the students, volunteers and teachers together, and we explained to them that the object was to get everyone as wet as possible but to not hit anyone in the face. We showed them the boundaries that they had to stay in, and everyone spread out and when we said go it was a free for all! It was really fun I nailed a few students good and even got some students to team up against teacher Peter, he was soaked by the end!

Monday night we had a bon fire with the kids at the centre. We just built a mini fire in the driveway, played some music and taught them how to make smores. The chocolate Jennie and I bough turned out to be too hard so we were trying to melt it in the kitchen then put it on a cracker. The chocolate turned hard very fast but the kids didn’t complain at all(even though they tasted so nasty I couldn’t eat mine), as they were all feeling a sugar high after eating at least three smores each(quite a bit for kids who don’t normally eat any sweets). They were all running around like crazy singing and dancing. They LOVE the song “Waka Waka” by Shikira, it was one of the theme songs for the World Cup. They literally ask to hear it over and over again, and they always dance to it, it is so cute! We did lots of dancing; they also loved this other song called “Yes”, by LMFAO. I’d never heard of it but a volunteer had it on her ipod and all the kids were in a circle every time they said “yes” in the song, we got some video of it, hopefully I will be able to post that soon although I’m not quite sure I will be able to figure it out J

The next night was the last night for the group of six from Montana. We had a huge cookout with the kids from the centre. We helped the dadas cook the food, my job was to slice the potatoes to make chips(French fries), I was struggling quite a bit then the houseboy Esanjo showed me his cutting style and it worked much better! Everyone had a different task to help with. In the end we had pumpkin soup, chips, guacamole, chipati(kind of like a crepe but thicker), salad, watermelon, banana, rice, and beans. It was a very good feast, espically for the kids because they usually get one thing for dinner. After dinner we had another dance party, and made more smores, this time with good chocolate!

Wednesday morning Jennie and I took some of the new LWCC kids to the hospital. They all have to be tested for HIV and if they are positive they have to go to a orphanage specifically for children with HIV. Once we got there we had to wait only a few minutes and then we took the kids one by one to get their finger pricked. They were so good none of them were scared(they didn’t know what they were getting tested for), and after the last one the doctor said that we just had to wait 30 minutes for the results. I had a slight panic attack in my mind because I had no idea that I would be the one who got the results. I figured it would take a few days and Anza or Dora would have to call to get the tests back. A million things ran tough my head as we were waiting, the most obvious thing, what the hell were we going to do if one of them was positive. Jennie and I did our best to just hang with the kids and not let them see how worried. Soon the doctor came out and handed me their slips, which all came back negative THANKFULLY….I still don’t know what I would’ve done or how I would have reacted if the results turned out positive. After that we waited for 1 ½ hours to be picked up TIA! I went and bought the kids some juice boxes and muffins at a little shop right outside of the hospital. I felt bad for them because we were waiting so long, plus they were very good patients and thought they deserved a little treat.