well i have begun to find my bearings a little more in this place... some things take longer to get used to than others such as the constant feeling of being sweaty and dirty and that every where i walk, people are constantly yelling out ‘wazungu’ or ‘habari’ (the first meaning ‘white people’ second meaning ‘hi how are you’) at first it was very overwhelming but its now becoming more normal. plus i think the people around us are getting used to us more because its not as constant, which is nice... can you imagine every time you leave your house people are yelling out at you ‘white person, hey white person’...... its a different feeling than when i was in indonesia. there they thought it was so neat that you were there and thought you to be something of famous wanting to take your picture or if you say hi they just giggle. here is a mixed response, often people will just stare at you if you say hi, or they laugh at you. not in the giggly way of ‘oh they talked to me’ but in the ‘funny white person trying to speak swahili’ way..... its not always like that though, we have met some lovely people who are extremely helpful when trying to catch a dala dala, they escort you through the busy crowds to the correct bus and make sure you get on. others will smile at you and say hi back and many do say ‘karibu’ which means ‘welcome, you are welcome here’.
this past week has begun to get busier, we still have no working visa’s, (which we know could take months) but the clinic attached to the base has offered us a place to learn and work alongside them in. but because it is a small clinic only four of us can go in a day. wednesday was my turn! it was immunization and baby weigh day. we were told to prepare a teaching and that we could watch and learn from the staff there. so me and my partner did a teaching on ‘weaning foods’ (getting a baby on its way to eating solid food) and spent the rest of the day watching and learning. at one point the staff was very overwhelmed with women coming in continually and so me and my partner took over the baby weighing... a difficult task at first because some of the babies were just brand new and did not have there growth charts yet, so we had to fill in one for them and you can imagine with the language barrier it was a bit challenging! but we learnt what each slot meant on the card and how to ask the correct mother the questions... spelling, well that was a completely different matter that apparently doesn’t matter too much because no one seemed to correct us and later our staff said that many times people charts in the hospital will have several different spellings but its all for the same person, and its not an issue! it was pretty neat to weigh the babies and chart there weight, some who were a little older you could see if they were growing the way they should and if they were healthy. the smallest baby i weighed was only four days old and weighed 2kg (4.4lbs) so tiny. we basically did weighings for majority of the morning and watched a few immunizations, apparently next time we’ll be allowed to administer them.... not so sure how i feel about sticking needles into unexpecting young ones but we’ll see!
this week has also been filled with working around the base as they are short staffed, so cleaning and sweeping the outside... basically raking but they call it sweeping.... doing village walks and meeting some of the locals to build a relationship with the community we live in and i even spent a morning teaching at the elementary school. the teacher is a staff here on the YWAM base and has been sick all week, so to help out we offered. so two of us went over there on tuesday and it was quite hilarious! we were told to tell a story.... caught a little off guard we did as any ywamer does and told the story of ‘David and Goliath’ i told it and my partner acted it out! the kids loved it and i think somewhat understood it (they had english lessons). then were told to ask them questions and get them to draw a picture and then we were given a red pen to mark them! pretty neat hearing there accents saying to me ‘teacher, i am finished’
we had a free day as well where me and some other girls caught the dala dala to downtown where there is a hotel with free internet on the ninth floor! as well as a restaurant that had cheeseburgers! haha! it was a nice afternoon sitting in an air conditioned room and then made our way home on the dala dala, which isn’t as scary as the first time!
today was church, and although we left the base at 8.45 and arrived home at 5.00 it was an enjoyable day. the service was a mixture of our team doing drama’s, sharing testimonies and preaching, mixed in with their church sharing testimonies, singing songs and even having the children come and sing and then one of the girls, probably around ten years old preached! it was amazing! i think even the congregation was surprised and they brought up her parents after to the front to say a few words. and because this is Africa, they also brought up group by group the members of the church to introduce us and welcome us to the service! it was a long service around three and half hours but yet it was really nice, they had someone always translating for us so we could follow and understand what was being said which was a huge blessing. and then we discovered that they had prepared lunch for us and we were expected to go. so that is how the day became so long, a lunch turns into sitting in a living room for four hours! but the food was good, and they had real sofa’s to sit on and even a fan blowing cool air around! luxury!
so that was my week.... roughly! and i’m ready for another. this week we are having evangelism down town all day tomorrow, so another long day. and then on thursday i am going to the clinic again but this time its antenatal care! so hopefully i’ll be able to do some palpation's and things! who knows!
till next time....
Friday, October 15, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
week thirteen - outreach begins!
Habari! ‘hello how are you?’ its the main greeting here.... yes we have arrived! we left late satruday night from Perth. flew through Dubai and landed in Tanzania monday afternoon. we were met at the airport but through a series of finding a vehicle big enough to take us all and one for our luggage as well took around two hours. but this is Africa, and this is outreach, which basically means that you must be flexible. anything can happen, or not happen! just go with the flow....
so we got to the base after a very eventful drive consisting of sharing back roads through villages with huge trucks.... the kind of moments where you suck in thinking it will help your van get through the driving space! but we made if fine to the base and it is beautiful here. we’re slightly outside the city and the base actually sits upon eighty acres of land, all of which were donated to YWAM! we have real beds (bunk beds of course) with a lovely little foamy for a mattress, and equipped with a mosquito net to be tucked in each night around us and untucked each morning. (trying to prevent malaria for the bite of a mosquito.)
the food is... we’ll i’m getting used to feeling hungary a lot of the time. the food in itself is not bad just not enough to sustain you for long periods of time. an average day consists of bread/mundazi (kinda like a donut without sugar) and a hot drink for our seven am breakfast, lunch is then served at one and is usually ugali (white, play-dough like stuff that is made of water and grinded maize (corn)) and beans, and dinner at six with perhaps more ugali and rice and of course beans. sometimes instead of beans theres this tomato sauce stuff with random veggies in it which is good as well. not much variety but so far i’ve enjoyed it.
what have we been up to since being here? well we are still awaiting our visa’s, which is apparently more of a process then we thought would be. our visa’s will give us residency and permission to work in the hospital. so this past week was kinda catching our bearings, we did a town run.... which in itself is an adventure. the public transport is called a dala dala, which in Canada is about the size of a mini van, legally seating twelve people, but here there are no such laws and yesterday we counted almost forty people squeezed on with a few hanging out of the door! so yes quite an adventure. so yes town run where we learnt how to catch a dala dala and then had some lunch in town and could look at shops if we wanted, we were so tired after the ride in and finding somewhere to have lunch that we left shortly after! there is one village in between us and the city where we stopped and looked around a bit. its an odd feeling to called out to consistently, and stared at, but again this is outreach and hopefully after they realize we’re here for awhile they will settle down!
we’ve done some help for the base as well. i was in a group that went to the primary school (elementary) to help the teacher mark tests. it was fun cuz the tests were in english and hearing some of those kids answers was just adorable! the school is ran by the base here, they actually have quite a few different ministry’s that they do. they have the primary school (which they desperately need teachers if anyone feels led to come and work in Tanzania!), a pre school, sewing classes and construction classes and of course run DTS (disciple training school).there is also a farm on base which provides some of the green’s we get, and soon hopefully other things will be ripe to eat! they have pineapples, passion fruit, some mango tree’s, coconut tree’s (which i’ve already had a few of!) and other things.
so trying to pick up some language and get to know the base staff here. one girl lives in the room with us, (our team is split into six different rooms, three of which are families and then us single girls split up in three rooms as well) and she speaks a little bit of english so trying to learn swahili from her and then teach her some english... its been interesting!
i think next week we’re going to be doing some teachings in the villages nearby and perhaps get to go and teach some basic health to the public school across the main road. we’ll see what happens! you just never know!
we went to church this morning and it was so neat, the kids did a few songs for us and the worship in general is just what you’d imagine singing to be like in Africa! i love it! oh and a fun fact for those of you who didn’t know, the movie ‘the lion king’ has swahili in it! ‘Simba’ means ‘lion’, Rafiki means ‘friend’, ‘hakuna matata’ literately means ‘no worries’ and my favorite is ‘asante sana’ means ‘thank you very much’. when we found that out we couldn’t help but add on the rest of the phrase, ‘asante sana squashed banana’s’!
internet is going to be far a few i’m thinking, to get free wireless to use my computer i have to take a trip downtown, not my favorite thing to do, and with only having one day off a week i won’t have the time to do so. so i apologize if this is not as updated as it used to be but at least there is a place where i can bring my computer! i hope it works, i actually haven't tried, i’m currently writing things on my computer and saving them to make the sending off faster! so we’ll see i guess! yesterday was our day off and we went to the beach! about a forty minute trip using two dala dala’s but we found our way there and it is beautiful! we’re right on the indian ocean... just gorgeous!
oh i just remembered another thing this week that happened! i turned twenty-two!!! it was a very special birthday for me, in the evening the base held a birthday party to celebrate all the september birthdays, i felt so special to be included in this celebration and to have it happen on my real day. there were four of us in total but two did not come and so it was me and a little four year old named Shady, (short for Shadrak). it a little overwhelming as they had us sit at a table facing everyone else. so everyone is watching you all the time! and then Shady fell asleep with his chin on the table! so cute, so it was just me. they brought out a cake with candles and everything! my name was even on the cake! i had people praying for me, encouraging me and even was handed a basket of goodies. without my knowing it my team had gotten together to purchase presents for me! some of which were brought from Thailand (one student and her son had a layover there, on our way here they flew separate) so yes it was a very good birthday, i felt extremely blessed!
okay i realize how long this is but so much has happened, i’m finding myself settling in and adjusting to once again washing my clothes by hand, taking bucket showers and am even getting used to wearing a skirt at all times..... this is outreach!
i’m looking forward to when we get our visa’s and start teaching and learning and delivering babies!
take care till next time!
so we got to the base after a very eventful drive consisting of sharing back roads through villages with huge trucks.... the kind of moments where you suck in thinking it will help your van get through the driving space! but we made if fine to the base and it is beautiful here. we’re slightly outside the city and the base actually sits upon eighty acres of land, all of which were donated to YWAM! we have real beds (bunk beds of course) with a lovely little foamy for a mattress, and equipped with a mosquito net to be tucked in each night around us and untucked each morning. (trying to prevent malaria for the bite of a mosquito.)
the food is... we’ll i’m getting used to feeling hungary a lot of the time. the food in itself is not bad just not enough to sustain you for long periods of time. an average day consists of bread/mundazi (kinda like a donut without sugar) and a hot drink for our seven am breakfast, lunch is then served at one and is usually ugali (white, play-dough like stuff that is made of water and grinded maize (corn)) and beans, and dinner at six with perhaps more ugali and rice and of course beans. sometimes instead of beans theres this tomato sauce stuff with random veggies in it which is good as well. not much variety but so far i’ve enjoyed it.
what have we been up to since being here? well we are still awaiting our visa’s, which is apparently more of a process then we thought would be. our visa’s will give us residency and permission to work in the hospital. so this past week was kinda catching our bearings, we did a town run.... which in itself is an adventure. the public transport is called a dala dala, which in Canada is about the size of a mini van, legally seating twelve people, but here there are no such laws and yesterday we counted almost forty people squeezed on with a few hanging out of the door! so yes quite an adventure. so yes town run where we learnt how to catch a dala dala and then had some lunch in town and could look at shops if we wanted, we were so tired after the ride in and finding somewhere to have lunch that we left shortly after! there is one village in between us and the city where we stopped and looked around a bit. its an odd feeling to called out to consistently, and stared at, but again this is outreach and hopefully after they realize we’re here for awhile they will settle down!
we’ve done some help for the base as well. i was in a group that went to the primary school (elementary) to help the teacher mark tests. it was fun cuz the tests were in english and hearing some of those kids answers was just adorable! the school is ran by the base here, they actually have quite a few different ministry’s that they do. they have the primary school (which they desperately need teachers if anyone feels led to come and work in Tanzania!), a pre school, sewing classes and construction classes and of course run DTS (disciple training school).there is also a farm on base which provides some of the green’s we get, and soon hopefully other things will be ripe to eat! they have pineapples, passion fruit, some mango tree’s, coconut tree’s (which i’ve already had a few of!) and other things.
so trying to pick up some language and get to know the base staff here. one girl lives in the room with us, (our team is split into six different rooms, three of which are families and then us single girls split up in three rooms as well) and she speaks a little bit of english so trying to learn swahili from her and then teach her some english... its been interesting!
i think next week we’re going to be doing some teachings in the villages nearby and perhaps get to go and teach some basic health to the public school across the main road. we’ll see what happens! you just never know!
we went to church this morning and it was so neat, the kids did a few songs for us and the worship in general is just what you’d imagine singing to be like in Africa! i love it! oh and a fun fact for those of you who didn’t know, the movie ‘the lion king’ has swahili in it! ‘Simba’ means ‘lion’, Rafiki means ‘friend’, ‘hakuna matata’ literately means ‘no worries’ and my favorite is ‘asante sana’ means ‘thank you very much’. when we found that out we couldn’t help but add on the rest of the phrase, ‘asante sana squashed banana’s’!
internet is going to be far a few i’m thinking, to get free wireless to use my computer i have to take a trip downtown, not my favorite thing to do, and with only having one day off a week i won’t have the time to do so. so i apologize if this is not as updated as it used to be but at least there is a place where i can bring my computer! i hope it works, i actually haven't tried, i’m currently writing things on my computer and saving them to make the sending off faster! so we’ll see i guess! yesterday was our day off and we went to the beach! about a forty minute trip using two dala dala’s but we found our way there and it is beautiful! we’re right on the indian ocean... just gorgeous!
oh i just remembered another thing this week that happened! i turned twenty-two!!! it was a very special birthday for me, in the evening the base held a birthday party to celebrate all the september birthdays, i felt so special to be included in this celebration and to have it happen on my real day. there were four of us in total but two did not come and so it was me and a little four year old named Shady, (short for Shadrak). it a little overwhelming as they had us sit at a table facing everyone else. so everyone is watching you all the time! and then Shady fell asleep with his chin on the table! so cute, so it was just me. they brought out a cake with candles and everything! my name was even on the cake! i had people praying for me, encouraging me and even was handed a basket of goodies. without my knowing it my team had gotten together to purchase presents for me! some of which were brought from Thailand (one student and her son had a layover there, on our way here they flew separate) so yes it was a very good birthday, i felt extremely blessed!
okay i realize how long this is but so much has happened, i’m finding myself settling in and adjusting to once again washing my clothes by hand, taking bucket showers and am even getting used to wearing a skirt at all times..... this is outreach!
i’m looking forward to when we get our visa’s and start teaching and learning and delivering babies!
take care till next time!
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