June 23:
Today was nice and relaxing!
There was no stress about work due tomorrow, which was very
relieving. Adrienne and I still went to
school early to have some internet time (so I uploaded a lot of pictures on
Facebook if you want to check them out!
Around 11 o’clock, Hannah, Mike, Matt, Lodoe, and I went on a run around
KCMC. Of course I managed to trip on a
rock and go flying on the rocky, dirt road—scraping my knee, hands, and
elbow. Not as bad as falling out of a
van in the Philippines though…
After working out, I went home to shower. Unfortunately, there was no tap water this
morning, so mama couldn’t prepare new bucket showers. I used a bucket from 3 days ago so it was
freezing cold…. But a shower was necessary.
Then, we walked to Dr. Stacy’s house to do our reflection session. Today, we just reflected on the course as a
whole and gave our input in terms of strengths and weaknesses of the course,
and improvements that could be made for future years.
After our reflection session, some of us went to Ume’s to
watch a movie. We watched Forgetting
Sarah Marshall, and our Maasai friend (Hendry) came over to watch the movie
with us. Mama Mary (Ume’s mama) was knitting,
and I asked her if she could teach me how to knit next week, so that will be
exciting!! I left Ume’s before the movie
ended so that I could walk home before dark, and then Adrienne and I went to
one of the neighbor’s houses to play with the kids. Katrina gave Adrienne and I play-do and some
jewelry that we could have to play with the kids. We brought out the jewelry and the hair clips
tonight, and the kids had fun with that!
We had pilau and bananas for dinner. As always, the pilau was delicious! After dinner, Mesha came over to finish
watching the end of Bridesmaids. Derike
wanted to watch the movie with us too, and it’s not like he could understand
the words, so we let him. We had to
cover his eyes a lot though.
Now Adrienne and I are both in bed writing our
blogs/journals. We start our first day
of work tomorrow and I’m super excited!!!!
June 24:
Today I started my internship! Around 8:30am, the people in my program who
have local internships met Francis at KCMC to take a dala-dala into town
together. Adrienne and Ume are working
at Kinshai (women and girls with HIV/AIDS), Hannah is working at NAFGEM (N--? against female genital mutilation), and Grace, Rebecca, and I are working at
BCC (Building a Caring Community). We
got off near Kinshai to drop Adrienne and Ume off at their internship. Francis was dropping everyone off at their
sites, but he didn’t really know where he was going. We had to keep asking around. It was like the blind leading the blind. We finally found it, then began our search
for NAFGEM to drop Hannah off. After her
introductions, we went to the BCC main office, right outside of the Lutheran
Church they work with.
We met four
different people in the office, and ultimately Gertrude was the person who
showed us around. We told them what our
objective for working with them was (learning how an NGO operates, and helping
out with the kids and doing whatever else they needed us for) and then they
told us a little bit about their organization’s mission. BCC partners with Mosaic International (which
is based in Nebraska, USA) and the IMPACT Alliance. BCC’s mission is to help children with
disabilities learn daily activities of living by providing them with
therapeutic, educational, social, and nutritional supports in day centers. The hope is that these children will learn
special skills that will allow them to move on to vocational schools and learn
job skills. BCC also teaches families
how to support their children, and allows parents the opportunity to
work while their children are at the day centers. There is also a preventative healthcare
program which provides children with two general doctor visits, quarterly
preventive healthcare exams, one vision exam, one dental exam, and any
suggested medications each year. Lastly,
BCC provides in-home supports to those families with children who are unable to
attend the day center, or whose needs are best met at home.
Grace,
Rebecca, and I are working in the day centers.
There are 11 centers in Moshi, and each one tends to up to 9
children. We will be working at 4
centers over the next 4 weeks—one each week.
This week, we are working at “Longuo”.
It’s located right next to our homestays on KCMC road—about a 5-minute
walk from my house, which is nice. On Wednesdays, the kids stay at home… so we
only work 4 days a week, which is also nice.
Our workday is from 9am-3pm.
Today we missed the first part of
the day because of orientation, and arrived at our site around teatime. There are 3 caregivers in each center—at
Longuo, their names are Denisia, Flora, and Eva. Usually, there are 8 children in our center,
but today there were only 5. Apparently,
the children have an educational learning session in the morning when they
learn things such as colors, numbers, letters, and the names of various
things. In the afternoon, the activities
are more specialized to the children’s specific needs. For example, Dennis, a 7-year-old boy, is
partially blind and hypersensitive (he hates touching things and he hates being
touched), and he doesn’t speak. In the
afternoon, one of the caregivers forced him to stick his hands into a bowl of
beads. This went on for a while as
Dennis struggled. One thing that struck
me: as Dennis was struggling and squirming, he kept accidentally kicking one of
the girls. The girl kept saying “ouch”,
and the caregiver just laughed. Finally,
Rebecca and I moved the girl out of reach of Dennis’s kicking feet. The girl’s name is Dotto. She is 9-years-old and has epilepsy—she wears
a helmet all times for when she unexpectedly collapses. I think she was my favorite kid today. She was so happy and her smile was absolutely
contagious. The other 3 kids were named
Perpetua, Elisia, and Heiness (all girls).
Perpetua and Elisia have down-syndrome, and I’m not positive
about Heiness.
 |
| the classroom! |
Swahili definitely came in handy
today. None of the caregivers speak
English except for a few phrases here and there, and the children speak
absolutely no English. I was playing
with Perpetua for the majority of the afternoon. She’s 12.
We played with blocks for a little bit, and I would say a color and have
her repeat after me. I tried to ask her
what her favorite color was, but she didn’t respond. It was kind of hard to get the children to
talk. Only Elisia and Perpetua told me
their age when I asked how old everybody was.
Dotto responded with something, but it definitely was not a number. I’m not too sure what she said. After colors, Perpetua and I went over
numbers and played with play-doh. She
would randomly start laughing, and I would have no idea what she was laughing
at but it was funny and made me laugh. I
also learned the Swahili version of
“Head-shoulders-knees-and-toes-knees-and-toes—“. It goes “Kichwa, mabega, kifua na tumbo,
magoti vidole, magoti vidole… vidole, magoti, tumbo na kifua, mabega na kichwa,
mabega na kichwa!” That translates to:
head, shoulders, chest and stomach, knees, toes, knees toes… toes, knees,
stomach and chest, shoulders and head, shoulders and head. I’ll sing it for you at home if you ask me
to! Elisia, Perpetua, and Heiness taught
it to us with Denisia. Elisia and Heiness
also danced and sang another Swahili song, but I didn’t learn that one.
After playing and learning with the
kids, it was lunchtime. We were served
wali maharagwe (rice, beans, and mboga), and ate with the kids. While we were eating, a huge bug jumped on
me. I absolutely HATE bugs and wanted to
jump out of my seat and scream, but I didn’t want to make a scene and freak out
the kids. As calmly as possible, I
flicked the bug off my leg with my plate.
My banana went flying, but Dotto and Perpetua found that hilarious and
they both started cracking up.
When we were done eating lunch, we
helped everyone clean up, and then the caregivers pulled mattresses out for the
kids to take naps. When the kids laid
down for their naps, we left. All the
caregivers were sooooo sweet! They
didn’t want us to leave and they were so grateful for our presence and
help. I’m really excited to go back
again tomorrow and the rest of the week.
The rest of my evening consisted of
working out with Grace and Ume, sharing stories with Adrienne, talking with
Mama, drinking tea, and eating dinner.
Mama made a pasta dish with onions, carrots, and peppers and we also had
bananas and avocados. After dinner, mama
gave us Chapati, which I reluctantly ate because I already had a food
baby. Now I’m going to bed and I get to
sleep in tomorrow J
Tomorrow is also mama’s birthday!
June 25:
Today was probably the worst day of me being abroad so
far. I woke up around 5am with an awful
stomachache. I didn’t have to be awake
for another 3 hours, so I tried to go back to sleep but I had a tough time
doing so. Adrienne woke up around 7, so
I decided to have tea with her. Mama
also made Chapati (which, keep in mind, is my favorite) but I couldn’t even try
to eat it. When Adrienne left for work,
I laid back in bed until around 8:40am, quickly got dressed, and met Grace and
Rebecca at 8:50am. I did not care what I
looked like at all today.
We helped Mama Denisia (one of the caregivers) do a little
bit of sweeping and mopping of the facility until the kids started getting
there. Today, only Elisia, Heiness, and
Perpetua showed up. The rest of the kids
were sick. When the three girls showed
up, we helped them sweep the dirt path.
(Everyone here keeps the dirt clean—it’s really weird, but that’s one of
the chores the kids learn at Longuo).
After the dirt path was all cleaned up, the girls brushed their
teeth. When they were done brushing
their teeth, they had their morning education session. Each child has their name on the wall with a
list of chores they do each day. Elisia, Perpetua, and Heiness took turns going
up to the wall and taking down the chores they had already completed. Next, they took turns saying what the day was
(Thursday—Jumanne), what the caregiver’s mood today was (Furaha—happy), and
what the weather was like outside (Mawingu—cloudy). After each child got those 3 items correct,
they took turns placing the letters ‘j’ ‘u’ ‘m’ ‘a’ ‘n’ ‘n’ and ‘e’ on a sheet
of paper that had each of the letters outlined.
This activity made me realize the extent of the children’s difficulties. Elisia was the only one who could do this
activity with ease. Mama Denisia was
aiding the other two, but they were having a lot of trouble. They kept putting the letters upside down or
sideways on the paper even though the outline was there. They also kept picking up the wrong letter to
use to begin with. Mama Denisia would
say “the green one”, but they would still pick up the wrong letter even though
there was only one green one.
When these activities were completed, Mama Denisia said a
long prayer out loud. This prayer was
followed by singing, dancing, clamping, maraca-shaking, and bell ringing. I think this was my favorite part of the
day. Elisia sang along with Denisia, and
she was standing up and dancing which was so cute. Eventually, Heiness joined her… but Perpetua
stayed seated the whole time. Mama
Denisia has a very nice singing voice and I wish I had taken a video of the
kids. Maybe I will on Thursday.
As much as I loved the performance, it was so difficult for
me to stay seated upright. My stomach
was still killing me and the only thing I could do to make it feel better was
hunch over. The kids were served
porridge (Uji) and we were served tea with bread, but I couldn’t even stomach
the bread. Eventually, I decided I would
tell Mama Denisia that I wasn’t feeling well and I asked if I could go
home. She was really nice about it, and
let me go without hesitation.
About 10 minutes after I crawled into bed, Adrienne showed
up at home. She was surprised to see me
but when I told her I left work early because I was feeling sick, she said she
was feeling sick too! The two of us
napped for about 7 hours today. At one
point, mama yelled for me from outside my room, asking me to come eat some
lunch. When I walked out of the room,
she immediately asked if I was sick. I
said I was, but that I would try to eat food anyway. I tried eating a couple bites of a banana but
my body wasn’t happy about that decision.
I told mama I was going back to sleep and would maybe try to eat
later.
A little bit later, Derike started throwing up too. Mama panicked a little bit and cleaned the
whole bathroom, and cancelled her birthday plans for tonight (she was going to
have friends come over to celebrate her birthday). I felt bad about that, but with Derike sick
too, it was the best decision to make. Mama made us porridge and tea, and boiled us
hot water for showering. Luckily,
Adrienne had a lot of different medicine with her so I was able to take something. I’m pretty sure I have a fever right now, but
I’m hoping it goes away by the morning.
