In pieces

So the pipes are being installed AS WE SPEAK for the pump, although we're still a little short on the final total, and within the next two weeks, we should have water for my babies! Woot! Seriously, it's shocking how much you appreciate that transparent wet stuff when it's not there. And, as soon as the water is in, I will be moving to a house directly between the orphanage and the hospital, which will be really nice since I'm constitutionally incapable of going more than 24 hours without missing those kids so much it's obscene. The move is earlier than expected due to a miscommunication with ELI, which caused kind of insane stress for a few days but is now resolved and not really worth talking about - just trusts me that this was a really, really long week. The house itself is HUGE, and it's going to be really strange and a little creepy to live in it by myself - several male Tanzanian acquaintances have already offered to come live with me, which will NOT be necessary thank you.

I have good news and hard news about Zawadi and Simoni - First of all, Zawadi finally has her first tooth, which means she is being a royal pain the butt but is still an exciting developmental milestone. Secondly, we got their x rays done, and it turns out that neither of them has hip dysplasia, which is kind of shocking, given that Simoni didn't walk until two and a half and Zawadi is just starting now at sixteen months. However, their delays and leg weakness are probably due to nutritional deficiencies (which is why I'm pushing the mamas to GIVE THEM THE DAMN VITAMINS even when we're not here to remind them), not just as kids but likely in the womb as well. This was further explained by Mama Pendo, who told us that Simoni's mother was a drug addict who abandoned him, and for all we know may still be alive, and probably didn't know the father herself - and Zawadi's mother was likely killed by her father. And then I picked them both up and buried my face in between them and cried, confusing them both and probably not really helping much of anything. But wow. I guess, even given the fact that the kids are in an orphanage and you know their background is rough, you STILL idealize it, with some loving family that wishes they could keep the kids but just can't and... sometimes it's not like that.

Yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to leave, either.

On an upbeat note, I finally received a letter sent several months ago by my darling friend Meghan, for my birthday, and it reminded me of something else I didn't appreciate at the time but now miss. For my birthday and approximately a month afterwards, EVERY DAY I got wished a happy birthday by at least five kids. The video below was taken two to three weeks after the day itself.

It's adorable but it did eventually get on my nerves and now... it's stopped and I miss it. Because I'm pathetic. Which is the moral of this post, I suppose - I am only halfway through and I can already see that there are going to be some serious, serious problems when it's time for me to go. Like maybe-it-makes-sense-to-marry-a-random-Tanzanian-and-adopt-them-all moments of insanity. My parents might have to drug me to get me on the plane. We shall see! At least it would make a good blog post.

Reflections on the halfway point, and thanks

So I'm halfway through, and I don't actually have any idea how I feel about that. There are days (see "Wishing for a Snowman") when I'd give almost anything to take a break, to just pause in the back breaking work that this is and will continue to be - and then I see the kids' smiles, and the passion of my students, and it's all worth it. I know, I've become the world's cheesiest person, I'm aware! Still, every time we jump one hurdle, another one seems to appear. After waiting three hours to see a physiotherapist, we were told we need X-Rays for Zawadi and Simoni before anything can be done. After raising (most of) the money to at least start working on the pump, a hitch delays the wire transfer, meaning a wait of at least another week. Now it turns out my organization may have mistakenly booked me into the house I'm staying at for only three months instead of four - not a huge problem since I can move into the hospital house early, but definitely a frustration since the last thing I want right now is the added stress of moving. In addition, several of my friends are leaving imminently, and I'm feeling kind of alone - moving into a house by myself isn't exactly going to help that feeling. Plus my damn fever is still there, every day, after three weeks - the literature says it should self-limit to four weeks at maximum, so in a week or so I have to head back to the specialist if it's not cleared up.

Pray and Simoni, my "twins"

BUT. There are lots of good things happening too, I don't want to sound like I'm just whining. The chickens are thriving and brooding eggs, all of the babies seem to be doing really well, with the possible exception of Ebenezer - who came in with Rezeki - and is still worryingly small. But even he is gaining. We've got vitamins set up for all the kids, and extra bone-strengthening ones for Zawadi and Simoni. The garden is all ready to go, once we can summon up the energy to weed, fertilize, and plant - but the seeds are ready and we're not far from entering the rainy season, making this perfect timing. The well project is almost fully funded, we're only about $500 off at this point (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, see the "How to Help" page for a full list of donors), taking a huge burden off my chest - and I know there are more generous people out there who will come through for the last part. Most importantly, the kids are HAPPY, thriving and learning and growing every day, and what more can you really ask than that?

Deep breaths and kids' smiles, I will be fine. Still on the lookout for that teleport, though.

Potty training olympics

Taking advice from his coach. His head wound is dressed, but not much else.

And... BOLT! They can't dress you if they can't catch you!

The judges give it... one encouraging smile, one indulgent smirk, and one serious eye roll.

Dreaming of a snowman.

WELL. It turns out that there was a serious miscommunication about the location of the primary tanks, which are a full kilometer from the well - SLIGHTLY problematic. So now instead of being a $2000 project, it's looking like a $6000 project, just to get the well we already have connected to the system and, you know, functional. Otherwise all we have is a very expensive hole in the ground. Sigh. I am meeting with the hospital officials today to try to work out a plan, but even in the best case scenario, I'm expecting about a $2000 deficit, and I simply don't know how we are going to fill it. We're appealing to various prior donors now, but I'm just exhausted and dispirited by the whole thing.

Between my co-sponsor backing out, the tripling of the cost, and a really frustratingly cold and oddly condescending reception from a big donor, yesterday was not going to well - and then I was running late for what should have been my first class back at Tamiha (more on that soon), and tried to get a taxi - only to be quoted completely and utterly outrageous prices, all due to the fact that I'm white. I ended up feeling so exhausted and taken advantage of that I broke down in tears in the Kilala bus stop - surrounded by about a hundred tough African motorcycle and taxi drivers WHO I HAVE TO SEE EVERY DAY - and just got into a cab and went HOME instead. I've been trying so hard to do everything right, and I'm feeling so discouraged and taken for granted - even though I know the important people, like the mamas at the orphanage and the hospital staff and administrators, don't take this project for granted at all. Between Rezeki last week and this, though, I'm feeling really helpless. Good intentions are very nice but they aren't going to help these babies - oh, and by the way, over 2/3s of them currently have malaria because the mosquito nets we have are filled with holes, and no one has had a chance to put up the new ones WE ACTUALLY HAVE. It's the same with so many donations, we are so utterly overwhelmed just keeping up with the day to day care of the kids that systemic changes just don't get enacted, a cycle I'm trying really hard to fight.

So then I got home, in tears, to find that I was (of course) locked out of my room because I'd left my keys in the lock for the chicken coop at Nkoaranga. Then I waited three hours for Christine to get home with the extra key, walked into my room ready to sink into bed and relax, turned on the light and... immediately, literally one to two seconds later, the power went off. For the rest of the night. No hot shower, no movies, no phone charging. The fever doesn't take a break, of course, the fever was there to keep me company, but seriously? Really, Africa?

And. On top of everything else, there have been some serious shakeups within the Tamiha structure - including some serious allegations against the legitimacy of the organization as a whole - and in particular, my roommate Christine has borne the brunt of what appears to be a completely nonsensical vilification, at least from my end. The moral of the story is that several programs seem to be falling apart, and integrity is being seriously questioned, and I have so very, very much to do over at Nkoaranga that I am desperately tempted to just run away and avoid the controversy entirely. Which, because I made a commitment to my students, who I care about deeply, is not something I can do, as much as I would like to. So I'm trying to get up the will to work on this project that I've been really drained of enthusiasm about, and I feel like there is a very large elephant sitting on my chest and I'm not sure how to get him to move. "Tafadhali kwenda, Tembo, kwasababu unaniumiza." Nope, asking politely didn't work.

Right now I'm fighting the desperate desire to go home. Not to STAY home - I want to be here for the next three months - just to, you know, teleport out of here for a week or two to regain my sanity. I know there are those of you who know this feeling well - my cousin Heather, who lived and taught in Hong Kong for three years, or my cousin Melanie, who regularly whirls around the world as part of her job working with children from conflict-torn areas. I would like to check out of my life for a few weeks and be back in America and not have to worry about the electricity, and be able to drink the water from the sink, and have this damn fever go away, and maybe make a snowman.

So there are my needs. A hug, a snowman, and $2000. Not so much to ask!

Iron wills and other things

So it turns out the kids aren't just savages, I beleive we have discovered the cause of the kids flaking fingernails, eating dirt, licking the chicken wire, and chewing on any metal object within reach, including but not limited to bottle caps, nails and springs - they're iron deficient! I feel like an idiot for not putting this together sooner, it makes perfect sense, and they're all starting on Flintstones Complete multivitamins with iron this week, so hopefully that'll help. If nothing else, I'd like to be able to wear my bag without the metal clip always ending up covered in slobber.

In other medical news, today I witnessed the drainage of a large, pus filled abscess on the back of Pray's head - I know he's feeling better because it took four full grown adults to hold him down sufficiently and they could hear him across the hospital. He's fine, recovered rapidly when informed that he would get all the candy he wanted as compensation. I do hate being the bad guy, though - because I've been working closely with the docs on the well project, and I'm reasonably medically knowledgable, and also because I frequently insist that kids need to be seen before the mamas think they do (and, PS, I'm always right), I've kind of become the designated hospital-goer. And poor Pray handled it pretty well (for him, which is to say the hospital was still standing), and he still loved me afterwards, but Zawadi now goes into alert-silent-terrified-prey-animal mode whenever I take her near the hospital, and I just hate seeing them hurting. Ebenezer, the other tiny preemie who came in with Rezeki, has malaria, and I'm really worried about him, too.

Friday I'm taking Zawadi and Simoni to a local rehabilitation center to get their hips looked at - some tourists stopped by today, one of whom was a doctor, and confirmed Dad's suspicion of hip dysplasia. It's likely too late for Simoni, but since Zawadi is just learning to walk, maybe we can get that hip back where it's supposed to be before the window has closed. Keep your fingers crossed!

In other news, the well part of the well is complete - thrillingly - meaning we just need to have the guy come install the pump and piping to the tanks to be water self sufficient! Unfortunately, my financial partner had to back out of this half of the project, leaving me between $500 and $1000 dollars short, which is slightly problematic. All of this is still basically for nothing if we can't get that last bit of funding. Soooo I'm working on seeing if we can bring the price down at all, and harassing everyone I know to see if they have any pocket change this month that they want to throw in our direction. Sanitation? Saving lives? Anyone?

In addition, I'd like to reiterate that we have an incredibly generous $500 per year pledged by my wonderful aunt Rita towards the education of one of our kids for next year - three of them are still unsponsored. That means, however, that we still have $400 per year to go. Before the well snafu occurred, I was hoping to use some money from the donations to get a head start on that and simply make up the difference myself - however, that's not looking like a possibility anymore, and it's likely that I will instead be dipping pretty deep into my own savings to make the well happen, making it even less likely that I'll be able to commit to the other half. Is there anyone out there who could commit to even $100 or $200 per year to send one of our kids to school? It's through a US based nonprofit, The Foundation for Tomorrow (blog), meaning that it's entirely tax deductible, good for your taxes AND your soul!

Dianess (with the incredible smile)  is one of our unsponsored kids for next year. Just look at that face!

Sorry if this post is naggy, but these are really exciting and important projects, and it would be awful to get bogged down in the final stages and not be able to make the huge difference that is possible for these kids. Think about it!

</end Jewish guilt>

The bad news is, nobody knows. Still.

Just a quick note to let you all know that the mystery of my fevers remains unsolved, and looks like it will remain that way - according to the specialist, about 25% of fevers here come from these three diseases - leptospirosis, Q fever, and rickettsia - that have no other specific symptoms besides the darn fever, and are undetectable unless you compare before/after titers, obviously not an option here. So IF that's what I have, it should respond to the new meds - although it should also have responded to the old meds - and even if it doesn't, they generally go away on their own after 1-4 weeks. Sigh. But the good news is I'm cleared to work with the kids again, so hooray for that!

Now, the doctor didn't understand why I couldn't pinpoint the exact start of my sickness or why I'm constantly cycling through illnesses. I provide the pictures below as a visual aid. Pretty much anything is possible when you work with these kids.

And no, it is in no way coincidental that Pray is in more of these photos than anyone else. These pictures don't even do his dirt justice. You can FEEL it from across the room - and feel it even better when he launches himself and clings, monkey-like, with both arms and legs, to you for dear life to express his affection. And even without a washing machine, it's totally worth it.

The good news is, I'm PROBABLY not dying!

 First: I'm too lazy to do a Safari post, apparently, so you can see all the pictures here.

Ok, this time I have a better excuse for my extended absence than "I've been really busy" - I have, in fact, been running through the catalog of African ailments and also possibly the patience of several doctors. It all started a week and a half ago with a double bout of malaria and bronchitis for me and malaria and pneumonia for my friend Peter (see his lungs below). This, while unpleasant, was also a pretty great excuse to lay on the couch for a few days and watch movies until our brains melted and temperatures went away.

My sick buddy and my gorgeous friend Sydney a few days earlier at his birthday celebration

Unfortunately, it didn't work quite like that. Four days later, two days after finishing our courses of meds, I still had a fever and Peter was coughing up a lung several times a day (he must have had LOTS of lungs in there), so we went back to the hospital. This is when we got the pretty picture of Peter's lungs, after much wrestling, because the DOCTOR WE WERE SEEING DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO READ X-RAYS so he wouldn't order them. Thankfully I'm a pain in the butt and also know many of the doctors well through the work with the well, so we managed to get one done and read eventually, confirming pneumonia and getting an Rx for stronger antibiotics.

This should not be so difficult to get read in a hospital.

As for me, they did a typhoid test which came back sort-of-kind-of positive-ish, so they told me I probably had typhoid despite having had the vaccine, and gave me some antibiotics. Fast forward a few days to Monday, a full week after the initial diagnosis, when I had to go into Arusha with the hospital secretary (see the last post about church and chickens) to get some financial stuff figured out for the well drilling. He was, to say the least, a little concerned upon seeing me shivering violently for about an hour, and insisted on taking me to the referral hospital in Arusha on Tuesday. At this superfancy hospital, they still didn't have covers for the thermometer, necessitating an armpit thermometer reading, which my deodorant apparently screwed up by insisting I had no fever. After half an hour of shivering violently in the 80 degree waiting room, another patient complained and I grabbed the damn thermometer, wiped it down with my handy and omnipresent waterless hand sanitizer, and stuck that sucker under my tongue. THEN the believed I was sick.

Unfortunately, they concluded that the typhoid result WAS a result of the vaccine, and my blood was clear of any signs of bacterial infection, sooooo... basically they have no idea why I still have this stupid fever. Thankfully, the Jewish doctor network came through for me - the wonderful and well-connected Ruth Sack saved my life by harassing her brother, who is an infectious disease specialist, for a name of a specialist in Moshi, about an hour and a half away, who has gracefully agreed to see my diseased self tomorrow morning. So tomorrow I'm up early and heading to Moshi, and hopefully they will tell me I'm not dying and possibly even figure out what the hell is wrong with me. Crazy idea, I know.

As for everything else... it's been kind of a rollercoaster. Some things at the orphanage are going incredibly well, so let's start with the good. We have three chickens brooding, although they have laid their eggs in two next boxes and therefore insist on attempting to roost ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. None of them seem to have done this before. Regardless, we're hoping to successfully hatch at least a FEW chicks. It's all up to the cooperative powers of Porky, Lola, and Bugs.

Gracie, who was tiny and very sick with Malaria when I got here, and Loveness, who has moved up to be with the big kids all the time and is SO PROUD.

Zawadi looks silly with her hair gone but she is consenting to STAND as long as she can hold onto something, and can occasionally be cajoled into walking all of three steps before she makes her scrunchy pissed off face.

We had a ton of help lately from our neighbor and one of the world's sweetest fifteen year old boys, Frankie, who all the kids obviously adored beyond all reason.

David has been sick but on this particular day he was just ridiculously adorable in his matching outfits with Baracka, also attempting to eat his shoulder. Peter did nothing to stop these atrocities.

But the big news... we HIT WATER! It was earlier than we even expected, at around 50 meters - we had been afraid we would have to go to 100 meters or more, so this is very exciting. We still have to buy PVC pipes and get a pump installed to get water up and to the orphanage, but it's still a huge breakthrough and within a few weeks we should have a fully functional water system for the hospital and orphanage.

The drill rig and our personal Superman, Chuck.

The importance of keeping the health of the kids up and preserving the sanitation in the hospital was brought home powerfully this week, too. We lost one of our babies. Rezeki was very premature when he came to us three weeks ago, and had had several medical issues, including a nasty abscess and trouble eating. He was admitted to the hospital last week on Thursday, and he passed away on Sunday. I'm still numb and really struggling with the whole situation - several of us volunteers thought he was sicker than the mamas were giving credit for, he seemed to throw up everything he ate and had diarrhea, but he went to the doctors a few times and they never admitted him, so we convinced ourselves it was ok. And it wasn't. At all. And it's really, really difficult to think that maybe if we had pushed harder, he could have been saved. I tell myself I've been busy, and I have, but I can't shake the feeling that I should have known and I should have done something more.

So I'm trying not to be completely sunk by the despair of his tiny little life, and use these feelings instead to fuel pushing harder for better nutrition, for clean water, for more donations to hire more staff, for better organization of information between shifts... something to stop the wrenching of gaining my precious, beautiful, already adored beyond all reason new baby cousin Jamie, and in the same week losing a baby, a baby with no family, with no one to fight for him, whose name is already gone from the orphanage in the insane struggle to keep caring for the kids we have. And I understand that the mamas HAVE to be tough, have to block out the pain to keep doing the work that they do - but I'm not so tough. So I'm asking my mother to say Kadish for Rezeki this week, and it would mean a lot to me if you would keep him in your thoughts too. I can't stand the thought that he will be forgotten so fast. And, as always, any money will be turned into real improvements for these kids, so that they're healthy and so that they know that people out there in the world DO care about them.

Ok. That's all I can really handle for today, and I'm sorry to end this on kind of a bummer note. I will keep you all updated on the health situation as soon as I know what's going on, and also can get out of bed. Minor detail.

Nobody understands but me and my chicken.

BUT FIRST, a very important welcome to sir Jamie Marks D'Arcy Hart, my extremely aristocratic and already classy new baby great-cousin, and a hearty congratulations to Dan and Ellen and big brother Gabriel, who is taking great interest in the proceedings. You are adored and much anticipated, little dude!

Alright. Back in Tanzania, we will be retracing to chronicle an even more than usually unusual incident in my travels here. I was invited by the hospital secretary, who I have been working closely with on the well project, to come to the inauguration of his church. This involved a flock of grandchildren at his house, international Evangelical bishops, singing Masaii making percussion accompaniment with their jewelry, and several African "kekis," or cakes, which is to say goats. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Fashionable AND functional

Dear Africans: This is not a cake.

With his plethora of grandchildren and almost certainly regretting his decision to invite me

Yeah. Then they started having a fundraising auction, inside the church because it was raining, which included auctioning off chickens that would likely be killed on the spot and served up for dinner. My crazy ass decided it would be a great idea to buy one of the chickens, to rescue the poor thing and bring it to the orphanage (to be killed by them, ok, granted, but it would take longer!) So I bid on Tweety. Tweety sat beautifully in my lap for two hours of services after his acquisition, while everyone in the church laughed at the crazy Mzungu, which was, in this case, completely legitimate.

Trying to look innocent. Stupid rooster. All that mocking for nothing.

So the poor Secretary, who invited me as a favor, had to drive me and my chicken, who I rescued from certain death, to join the others at the orphanage. And how does this ungrateful chicken repay me? BY BEING A ROOSTER. We can't have another rooster because he'll fight with Yosemite Sam, our resident rooster. For reference, the laying hens are Bugs and Elmer and Porky and Lola, while the adolescent hens are Heckyl and Jekyll, Tom and Jerry, and Daffy and Goofy. Now Tweety sadly must find another home, and I'm hoping it doesn't involve imminent death, but I did what I could. See if I try to save a chicken from certain death again! What have you done for ME lately, Tweets?