So much time, so little to do - no wait, scratch that, reverse it

This is really just a lame placeholder apology posts for my continuing uselessness - but rest assured, there are big and wonderful things on the way. First and foremost, today we broke ground on the well! Look forward to updates re: Tanzanian bishops, chickens and banana circles and the care and feeding thereof, Rotary club, Rehema's promotion and upcoming college career, an orphan adoption and four kids off to school, and more. In the meantime, try to be satisfied with two random Tanzanian gems: the most awesome probably completely unintentional ironic t-shirt in history, and also my favorite sign in history - seriously, we pass this sign every time we come into Arusha and I still giggle hysterically after almost three months.

Indeed they do, sir.

Computerized zebras? Zebra eyes? Computerized eyes? The ambiguity, it hurts!

Merry Christmas-i

Today was, for most of the kids, their first ever experience with "Baba Chrismasi" - a sweet local couple, one Australian and one Tanzanian, who came as Santa and Mrs. Claus to the orphanage with lots of wonderful little gifts. More than anything, the kids were psyched about the attention! At first, they thought it had to be for my birthday, which broke my heart - it was a week ago and they are still talking about it - because they couldn't conceive that a big celebration could be for THEM. Such sweet, wonderful kids, and they break my heart and put it back together every. single. day. I will be spending Christmas itself at the orphanage, and will update once the internet cafes reopen. Until then, lots of love from TZ!

Each kid sat on Santa's knee and got their own present - a first.

Apparently Simoni is terrified of both chickens and kindly elderly gentlemen.

Me, Zawadi (looking suspicious), Peter, David (looking bemused), Santa, Esther and Sydney - a happy group.

The first (fake or real!) snow the kids had ever seen!

Chickens, Geese, Birds of a feather, and Avian Flu

Bear with me while I try to tie this all together - I am currently in the throes of a gross cold/flu/something that has rendered me unconscious for at least 55 of the last 72 hours. This occurred shortly after I scoffed at my mother's concerns over Avian flu due to my extensive bird handling recently - and it has indeed been extensive. Thus, since a blood test ruled out Malaria, I am referring to this current bout of disgustingness as my own personal Avian flu. Pity me.

My birds of a feather are sadly flying away, Christian having left yesterday and my wonderful Guilia flying tomorrow. Peter comes back tomorrow from Sudan, which helps, but I'm going to miss them a lot.

You're going WHERE?!?

As for the chickens, I got a call this morning from Frankie, the Tanzanian teenager who has been helping us with the birds - apparently, the birds decided they like the container for the bonemeal better than they like the custom made nestboxes, and have been laying their eggs there instead! Stupid birds. At any rate, it will require some rethinking of the pen design. My theory is that the birds shy away from the nest boxes because they are within sight of the window, from which a plethora of adorable, tiny, loudly screaming faces are using looming. So maybe we just move the boxes and solve the problem. We shall see. We collected our first egg last week, and my buddy Stevie promptly took it upon himself to throw it down a hill in his excitement - I think we all need to work on our chicken husbandry skills. In case you couldn't guess from the video, kuku means chicken in Kiswahili.

Chicken's eye view

And geese - this is borrowed from a wonderful friend of mine, who discussed how much easier life would be if men were tagged - I quote, "you know, like the way bread loaves have that little plastic thingy that closes tha bag.  sometimes they are different colors.  and men should be tagged like bread loves or like geese" to let us know whether they are gay or married or just terrible human beings so that we don't waste our time. This was an entirely theoretical and humorous idea until the recent revelation that certain people in positions of power here... let me rephrase that, a shockingly large percentage of men I've met in any kind of position of power here - seem to have serious problems with lying and/or attempted or successful sexual coercion of the women, and especially girls, working under them. I am devastated and deeply disappointed with some of the information coming to light, and in the process of trying to figure out what, if anything, can be done. I would like to extend the goose idea to tag men who are immoral and irresponsible, so they can be kept out of positions of power. When I'm God-Empress of the Universe...

Ugh. We're still doing good work, but getting bogged down a lot with organizational problems, and I'm starting to feel discouraged and frustrated. For instance, we STILL haven't had our survey done, despite being told every day since last week that it would be happening. Meanwhile, the man who has offered to drill for us essentially for free is getting antsy about the timetable, as he has paid commitments in the new year. Even when people legitimately ARE good and want to do good, the endless little frustrations of Africa seem to get in the way. Nothing to be done but to keep on plugging, and keep working on my Hakuna Matata attitude... Deep breaths...

...and dancing. Deep breaths and babies and dancing. These are the keys.

Birthday!

Today was a very long, and in many ways very wonderful day. From the mundane to the sublime:

So many blondes!

Last night I had a lovely evening with the girls I volunteer with - an Italian friend who works at the restaurant took over a corner of the kitchen and cooked up the most incredibly delicious handmade pasta I have ever eaten - if I had to choose a last meal, that would definitely be in the running! Later Giulia and the girls surprised me with a cake, and we had a really nice night celebrating - although a bittersweet one since the party doubles as a goodbye to Giulia, who leaves next week.

In my jewelry classes, things are coming along beautifully - we now have more than two full racks worth of jewelry, and have a few retail opportunities to pursue. I'm learning more Swahili from my adult student Elizabeth, and the girls continue to keep me endlessly impressed and entertained.

My "mature" student Elizabeth working.

Rack of metalwork

Rack of beading

At the orphanage, our projects are progressing beautifully - the chicken coop is up and running with six chickens, two of whom are of laying age, and the kids are thrilled - Zawadi even said "kuku!"All has gone smoothly, with the exception of one brief prison-break that necessitated a fence hop that resulted in a large rip across my derriere and a pulled down shirt for much of the afternoon, much to the amusement of the kids! Very exciting. Zawadi has actually been doing much better in the last week or two - possibly since the worms were taken care of - she now has several words, including chakula (food), asante (thank you), and now kuku (chicken), and she's even considering the possibility of walking. Today was wonderful, our great kid volunteers Abby and Jacob, along with their parents John and Sue, made me an adorable birthday card, and the kids spent all day saying variations of happy birthday Bekka, including merry Christmas Bekka and you're pretty Bekka, neither of which I objected to at all!

My stunning Abby-creation

The first of the six captives

Helping get the space ready

Ok, sort of helping!

And the best news saved for last - today a man who came to Tanzania with a missionary trip three years ago and just kind of never left showed up at the hospital because he had heard that we were looking to drill a well, and he happens to own a drilling rig and wants to do it for us for free - we pay only for the materials, essentially halving our costs, and ensuring that we will be able to make it happen, and soon! Of course, this being Africa, the survey company's equipment failed yesterday and we don't know yet when they will be back to finish the final piece of work before drilling can start - but this is an incredibly exciting development, and means we may even (knock wood) have a little money left over to put towards school funds, food, playground renovations (cough cough deathslide cough), etc. All in all, the best birthday gift I could have asked for.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been so generous, especially my incredible parents, brother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and the five Daves - and also to the, in a way, even more amazing donations from total strangers, you are truly amazing people and I can't thank you enough. I wish I could be home and here at the same time... hey, entire extended family and network of friends, how do you feel about blackouts, hot weather and really cute babies? And really, really expensive airfare?

I have the world's best, and possibly craziest, family

And I couldn't be, or feel, luckier. Thanks Mel and the rest of the crazy crew. And yes, I'm informed those ARE stuffed turkey hats.

Far away

I'm feeling a little lonely and sad today, frustrated by the hugeness of the challenges we have facing us, angry at the world for being so unfair to these wonderful kids, missing my family and friends for the holidays and my birthday (in five days). Also Christmas in a very Christian area in an exclusively Muslim and Christian country is kind of a lonely time to be a Jew. I think part of the problem is that the past week or two has been so full of meetings that I've hardly had any time just to be with the kids, or working with my teenage students, and I miss them too! Any ideas for feeling closer to home when you're really, really, really, ridiculously far away?

Some more good news, some more bad news, the steeper mountain

Alright, this past week has been beyond crazy so I apologize for the infrequent posting. Giulia and I have been in meetings all week with various hospital administrators and different drilling companies, trying to figure out how to get this project off the ground. In addition, and poignantly, the orphanage and hospital themselves are currently without water, which at LEAST doubles the workload of everyone working there - plus Mama Pendo is on holiday, visiting kids from  the orphanage currently enrolled in boarding school and now on vacation, and I have a billion things to do for Tamiha as well, which are sadly sitting on the back burner as I try to keep my head above water. So, first the bad news.

After speaking to various drilling companies, it appears that the well is going to be much more expensive than we originally thought. Because Nkoaranga is on a hill, the well will likely need to be at least 60 or 70 meters deep, maybe as much as a hundred. Even the best quotes we've gotten average about $90 USD per meter. Before we even know how deep the well will need to be, we have to comission a survey, which comes to about $500, even given the extensive discounts people have been willing to give us.

The good news: Giulia's amazing family and friends have come up with $5000 for the project, and I currently have about $3000 available - but we will almost certainly need closer to $10,000 to $12,000. Again, we might get lucky and only need to drill 700 meters, and then have money available for all the other projects - but we're not counting on it. The hospital is opening an independent account, that Guilia and I will be signatories for, exclusively for the drilling project. It is through the hospital (which funds the orphanage), which is a registered nonprofit, and therefore donations should be fully tax deductible - however, we have to figure out the details of the international aspect. Any tax experts out there? We are working on it!

Vaguely controlled chaos

Apart from that, we have two MORE new babies, bringing the grand total to six under the age of 6 months, four under one month. They are very, very, very small - I would bet that Rezeki is pretty severely premature, his face is very downy, and he also has a pretty nasty abscess on his arm that the hospital operated on yesterday. Poor little munchkin. The other kids are doing well - Zawadi tested positive for worms, which is, counterintuitively, a GOOD thing, because it explains why she is so little and it's easily treatable. Of course now we have to test the other babies... and really, I get enough interactionw ith poop as it is, I'm not thrilled to be signing up for more. Anyway, their health is clearly more important.

Other good news - TAMIHA received a huge donation of books from a project in America, and they are happy for us to take a bunch of them over to Nkoaranga for free, which helps a lot with financial stress on my end. We've also spent a lot of money in the last few weeks to buy new diapers, because when the water is out it gets incredibly difficult to keep up with the demand.

I miss home a lot sometimes, but I am honestly ridiculously happy here, I don't totally understand it - I love this work, and I guess at the end of the day that's what matters.

I know that it's the holidays, and you have a million demands on your time and money. But please consider whether this project is something you can help with. We're talking about drastically affecting the hygeine and survival rates of the thousands of poor Africans who use the hospital, about making the lives of these children and all of those who will come in after them - and there will always be more - infinitely safer, cleaner, and happier. Thank you for reading and caring -and a special shout out to Nikki and her kids, who sound wonderful - so glad you're enjoying reading!

All my love to you back home.

Good news, not so good news, very good news, the mountain.

Today was a full day at the orphanage - and yes, I know I haven't posted about the Safari yet, I will soon, I promise! - but with some very exciting results. First of all, and most thrillingly,

ZAWADI'S HIV TEST CAME BACK NEGATIVE!!!

Happy HIV negative babies!

This means that I have to take an unnatural interest in her poop to determine whether she has worms, but it's obviously very, very good news. Also fairly good news is that Emmanuel was deemed too young to start school this January, which means that all of the kids who are ready for school are sponsored and set to go - specifically, the twins Asimwe and Nisima, and Farajah.

Farajah looking serious, me, um, not looking serious.

So that's very good.

As for the not so good news, we have two new babies, who are five and seven days old today. That in and of itself is always heartbreaking. In addition, we had to say goodbye to our wonderful Mama Margaret, who is retiring - well deservedly! but we will miss her desperately. On top of all that, Mama Pendo, who is the heart and soul and brain of the place, is gone for a month for vacation, which is, again, extremely well deserved but will leave us a little helpless in her absence.

Vicki

Philipo

No idea what we'll do without her!

But. All that said, today was a very exciting day, because we got to go ahead to move forward with some very important projects for the orphanage. Right now, the water situation for the orphanage and the hospital it is next to is precarious at best. Water comes from capricious springs in the mountains, and they are so high up that tapping into any other source is impractical. As a result, during the dry season especially, both the hospital and the orphanage are frequently without water, sometimes for days on end. That means choosing between giving the kids water to drink or bathing them. It means no water to cook food, so they ration what they have. It means more bugs, skin infections, and degeneration of the facility they would need to go to in case things get bad. Even when we have water, the kids frequently don't get anything to drink because it takes so long and so much gas to boil and sanitize it. Food is similarly precarious, as so much depends on the cash flow that particular month.

How can you not want to help those little faces?

Enter our projects - my housemate Peter is converting an old toolshed into a chicken coop and planting a circle of banana and plaintain trees, which will be fed by the food waste that is currently being burned. Meanwhile, Guilia and I are co-funding the drilling of a well to supply water first to the orphanage, and then to the hospital. It would be preferable to have two wells, but each well costs almost $3000 US, and that is beyond our current budget. HOWEVER, if more of you lovely people jump on the bandwagon (already populated by many wonderful, wonderful family and friends, thank you!) we might be able to fund two. In addition to the big projects, there are a few other things I'm hoping to fund while I'm here. Thus, the mountain. In no particular order:

-My incredible American grandparents have commited to help me send Rehema, one of my students, a brilliant twenty-two year old with excellent secondary school grades and a perfect record at Tamiha, to go on to college to study computers and information technology. She actually cried the day I told her, we are currently working on finding the right school and preparing applications. She immediately said that she wanted to sponsor someone else in her position when the time comes, and I know she will.

-A small library of kids books, as right now there are literally a grand total of three in the orphanage, and they're decimated. It will have to be kept under lock and key, but it's still a huge improvement from the current situation.

-A ceiling fan to keep the flies off the babies. I know that sounds unpleasant, but the truth is that the tiny babies spend a lot of time on mattresses on the ground, of necessity, and the toddlers have actually begun copying our waving motions to shoo away the flies.


-Replacing the slide of death with something that won't, you know, knock out the front teeth of five or six kids a year (no joke.)

This thing is terrifying.

-Beginning sponsorship for next year's group of kids - at least three of whom are unsponsored at this point. I'm hoping maybe two or three people would be able to come forward and pledge a half, or a third, of the $900 tuition - which covers more than just school, take a look at the website of the organization that facilitates the placements. I'll write more about the specific kids soon.

-And because I'm a sucker, and as much as I should be objective, I'm simply not capable, and because even if she's HIV negative she's still tiny and vulnerable and sick all the time, I want to make sure that Zawadi is ok. I don't know exactly how that will look, but I need to know that I'm doing everything possible to keep her safe and healthy. And if you don't understand why, check out the two videos below from today.

And yet again, if that doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will. Happy babies, happy day!

Thanksgiving Part II - Holiday double feature

Thanksgiving took place on the single day I was home between Zanzibar and safari, and it was pretty fantastic. I've now improvised Thanksgiving dinner on two different continents, in Israel and here. At least in Israel we had an oven - here there was no turkey (I've seen a few alive but none for sale!) and all the cooking was done with five pots on a gas canister. I think we did pretty darn well all the same! After the Thanksgiving photos, I'm throwing in the ones from Halloween - my first sikuku Merikani (American holiday) in Tanzania, which I never got around to posting earlier. Sorry! 

Honestly, I've never been more thankful for everything I have than I am here and now. Working with the orphans reminds me how incredible my own family is, in all its larger than life glory. Working with the girls shows me how blessed I've been to have my education, to have the teachers and mentors who have led me to where I am. Working with the HIV widows forces me to come face to face with the reality that everything is temporary, and I could easily be in any of their shoes. Being so far away reminds me how lucky I am to have friends I miss so desperately, and I do. So thank you, everyone, for being in my life, and I hope you are as thrilled about just existing as I am right now - and if not, watch the video of what I'm most thankful for below and see if it helps. If it doesn't you may have no soul.

 And now on to the craziness...

Fortunately, that knife is very blunt. Unfortunately, it's also the sharpest one we have.

No, but for serious, bent over a hot stove all day.

Our feast in all its pre-desecration glory. Squash soup, my famous mushroom/raisin stuffing, honey-soy chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and delicious bread. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Peter actually ended up getting cut off from the squash soup after three bowls.

He compensated with wine. And yes, those ARE origami lotus napkins.

The pathetic crumbs left at the end of the night.

And the painful aftermath.

Christine ate approximately twice her own body weight, thus fulfilling the Thanksgiving spirit!

Aaaand Halloween... What these pictures DON'T show is that Halloween was on Election day, which had the potential to be violent and thus meant that we were locked down in the house/yard. This led to copious alcohol consumption, which led to positioning the jack-o-lanterns in the road and making scary noises whenever the neighborhood kids came to investigate. In Christian and Christine's case, it also meant ended up hiding under a blanket outside our door to scare said children.

Posing in front of the house

My glorious pumpkin

Christine's masterpiece

Christian's work of art.

In reality, we looked like fools, but very festive fools! Happy belated Halloween and Thanksgiving to you all, the only way it could have been better would have been to have you all with me.

Zanzibar for real this time!

I gotta tell you all, I'm going to do my best to put words to how amazing the Zanzibar trip was, but it'll be a stretch. Water that looks like it came out of a tap, soft white sand, incredible blue skies, random Masai men befriending us on the beaches, old fashioned dhows out fishing, children in brightly colored hijabs dragging shrimp nets through the water at sunset, bonfires on the beach, amazing and incredibly cheap food, snorkeling in a marine reserve, and swimming with dolphins. And I spent a grand total of approximately three hundred dollars on the whole trip, leaving me less than totally crippled with guilt for the escape. Whoo! I'm going to let the pictures speak for me from here on in, lest I sound more smug about this trip than I already do (sorry, dudes, but seriously - take a trip to Zanzibar. It's time.)

Open air dalla from Stonetown (where the ferry dropped off) to Kendwa, where we stayed. Less than a dollar per person for an hour and a half trip.

On our way out to Mnemba atoll's marine reserve

Free breakfast at the gorgeous beach restaurant at our hotel

Our fearless leader (?) for the dolphin trip. You have to give it to him, the man looks relaxed.

One night's candlelit dinner on the beach - yes, we did this every night.

Words fail me.

Our Masai friends Jacob (left) and Paul (right). Paul was in Masai garb all the time, whereas Jacob switched randomly back and forth - we didn't actually recognize him the first time we saw him in Western gear.

One of the two-apartment cottages that made up our hotel. Did I mention I paid $22 per night?

Streets of Stonetown

Not sure why this is sideways - the salient point is that the wristbands used for the full moon party were, inexplicably, left over from Jerusalem's party for the 40th anniversary of reunification in 2007. I was actually in Jerusalem when these bands were being used. Small world.

Campfires and guitar on the beach

A Canadian, three Americans, two Australians, two Norwegians, two Danes, a Scot and an Italian walked into a bar...

Heaven.

Anyone want to come visit? I know a great place to stay...

Rio Grande!

Just a quick post - MUCH MUCH more to come this afternoon - to say that Living Lukundane has been featured on Rio Grande's jewelry blog in a Thanksgiving post. Check it out

Thanksgiving Pt 1

Back from the neverending bus ride, Kindle is not cooperating, tired and sweaty and want to sleep for a month. I'll leave you with some pretty pictures in lieu of a full jewelry update for today - but it's coming, don't worry. Happy Thanksgiving - and there is nothing in the world I am more thankful for than my family, my health, and the support to be able to do this work. Except maybe being off that bus.

Rehema working hard

So much work, so little time!

Um, that's PEACE and love, sweetheart.