Year 27, Day 111 - Africa, Trippin' to Town

A trip to the city of Arusha has repeatedly proven itself to be an experience.

First, the mode of transportation is Teshee's car - an old boat of a car with no seat belts, no radio, and likely not road-worthy according to Canadian standards. Second, cultural practice dictates that the men sit in the front... and then us women all pile into the back, sitting on each others laps, because again... there are no rules about how many people you cram into a single vehicle. Third, the orphanage is about 15kms away from the city, but it takes over 40 minutes to travel the dirt "roads" due to the quality of the roads, maneuvering around pedestrians, animals, and the lack of traffic rules. Its nearly impossible to describe what its like to drive through the center of a bustling African city. Its surreal.

The view from Teshee's back seat on the way into Arusha, I hung out of the window to get this shot and ducked back in just in time to have the contents of that truck (dried corn) scrape against the window!

These poor people must be so hot pushing and pulling their carts.
They maneuver through traffic like slow cars and try to sell you things through the windows.

I think that this fast fact punctuates what I mean:
Over 1 million people live in the city of Arusha... and yet there are only 2, count em, 2 street lights.
Chaos. Yes, I think so.

No street lights, no stop signs. And us trying to pull into traffic while avoiding all animals and people.
You just kind of nudge in slowly and hope for the best...

Day 3 or 4 is also about the time that my bodily functions began to fail on me. I struggled with the sudden diet change and carbohydrate overload. Rice, bread, rice, rice, bread, rice. Everyone ate well, but this girl is clearly used to a little more roughage in her life, and a banana-a-day wasn't doing the job. It was also irritating because I had no control over my diet and so I eventually began smuggling in oranges and apples and eating them in secret in the hopes forcing my system into functioning again. Around day 6 I was ready to go to the doctor, when shit *cough* literally and thankfully sorted itself out.

Too much info? Too bad. This is my show.

And if you've traveled... you know that BM's are a constant topic of conversation as someone is inevitably having too many or not enough of them. Drugs are utilized, diets are controlled... regardless, I always suffer both extremes. It happened in Asia, and Africa was no different. Unfortunately for him, brother Joe knows more about my bodily functions than any other man in my life. Thats for shizzle.

But I digress.... we went to the city of Arusha numerous times during our stay at Karim's Orphanage, and every time we would end up in the same gated shopping area. It was basically a one-stop shop for the white people and tourists. I recall being told that it was extremely unsafe for us to leave the compound of this gated shopping area on our own due to the extremely plausible possibility of us being robbed. Awesome! I recall a feeling of constant paranoia when out in Arusha: people stare, everyone crowds you wanting to sell you things, and men say very very perverted things to you in Swahili while undressing you with their eyes. Its similar to Asia, but on a whoooooooole other level of poverty and forwardness. We were escorted most places by Rahema or Teshee and it was a comfort to know that they were looking out for us as it was in their best interest to keep up safe.

Our gated shopping center, homebase, and savior : Shoprite

An example of the street-side fresh food markets.

Our favorite regular stops included:
-The markets and shops- where we got our barter-on!!! Though not as cheap as you would assume....
-The internet cafe - standard. On one eventful visit, Nicole and I actually stopped-dropped-and-rolled as it sounded like gun shots were going off. The clerk maintained that it was just fireworks.... yeah right lady. Mid-effin-day-fireworks!? Later Mary-E told us that she practically saw someone get shot due to some protests. Ignorance is sometimes bliss. This event later caused me to scream in panic when on the way home, we were piled in the back of Teshee's car and a motorbike backfired next to my window. I thought it was round 2 of guns-gone-wild and we were all going down!
-Shoprite - where we indulged in box-store comforts of home, such as: air-conditioning, ice-cream, wine, Coke, and M&M Peanuts.
-The Pharmacy - to sort out our various ailments. White wimps dependent on medication.
-Restaurants... or the African-version thereof... don't get me wrong, the food at the orphanage was wonderful, although somewhat definitely repetitive, and sometimes scary. Goats-Brain soup was an epic fail for example.... Therefore it was a treat to sit down for a restaurant meal, even if there was definitely a worm in my burger once. But I ate it anyways. :)

Its Africa people. You just gotta roll with it.
And I loved every second of it.

Year 27, Day 110 - Africa

A New Routine Learned

Well a pattern has begun to emerge.
This timeline essentially summarizes the entire 10 days we spent at the orphanage...

8:30am: Breakfast.
-Bread and butter for the white folk. Rice by hand for the Africans.
-Instant coffee and homemade fresh ginger tea. YUM.

9:00am: Wash dishes.
-Using plastic buckets, harsh soap, and old canvas rice bags as scrubbers.

Lucy is easily the hardest working 11y/o I've ever met.

9:30am: "Shower"

-We attempted to uphold some standard of personal cleanliness on a daily basis.
Allow me to share the hygienic options:
1) Re-apply deodorant, brush teeth, find the least-dusty clothes.
2) Soak feet in a bucket to dislodge dirt, plus option 1.
3) Sponge bath using wet-wipes, plus option 1.

Mama Mary E demonstrating Option 2: the foot soak.

or, if you wanted to get completely down with your bad-self, you could....

4) In teams, take turns washing each others hair using COld-AsseD well water poured over your head from a 5 gallon pail.
Shampoo.
Shiver to death.
Accept the fact that your relationship with your fellow shower-companion has escalated and changed forever.
5) Follow this with a solo-round where-in you stand in the 5 gallon pail and execute a private "shower". By this I mean you either dump water on yourself bit-by-bit using the water jug... or contort your body into unnatural positions in order to submerge your limbs piece-by-piece.

I didn't think mine and Nic's relationship could get much closer... and then this took it "to the next level".

10:00am: Begin preparing lunch.

-Start re-using every one of those dishes you just cleaned.
-Dada usually took care of this, using all fresh ingredients Rehema purchased at the markets.
-Meanwhile the kids play outside, but never leave the security of the compound.

Inside the walls of the compound,
these separated the orphanage from the other houses.

One of our neighbors houses.

10:30am: Options
-Option 1) Call Rehema's friend Teshee to drive us to town.
-Option 2) Play with the kids outside.
-Option 3) Help with various chores.

2:30pm: Mandatory-Sanity-Saving-Nap
-Break-time from the hordes of grubby/grabby yet wonderful children.
-Chug bottled water.
-Its the heat of the day and so even the children are quiet and inside.
-Take time to read, journal, and reflect upon how I'm not ready for motherhood.
-Feel grateful for how privileged my life has been.
-Allow myself to miss the comforts of Canada and *gasp* England.
-Feel grateful and proud that I am in Africa, seeing and doing.
-Feel grateful that my professional choice was not to become a childcare provider.

3:30pm: Lunch time.
*Please note the amount of time that has occurred since I was last fed.... adjustment much!?
This was the menu. Daily. It included and was limited to:
-Rice.
-Unknown meat chunks.
-Unknown meat sauce.
-The biggest and most bad-ass fresh avocados.
-Fresh bananas.
-Bottled water.

4:00pm: Wash dishes. Again.
-Battle hordes upon hordes of black flies to do so.

4:30pm: Begin preparing the evening meal.
-Reuse all the clean dishes.
-Participate in 18th century domestic hell.

Dada doing the laundry for all 14 kids and 4 adults.

5:00pm - 7:00pm: Play outside.
Games include, but are not limited to:

-Tag.....Courtney is always "it".
-Push the kids on the tire swing.
-Push the kids in the wheel-barrow.
-Brush the white-person hair.
-Fight over who gets to take pictures with the cameras.
-Pose endlessly for said cameras until one of the camera owners gets tired of monitoring the game.
-Fight to repeatedly touch any electronic device within eye-sight.

7:00pm: Singing on the front step.
-These kids can shake it! Seriously. Booty bouncing and singing all over the place!

7:30pm: Move indoors because its too dark outside. 

Games include, but are not limited to:
-Coloring books

-Practicing homework: numbers and abc's

-Dice

-Go Fish (or a version thereof, depending upon the age and English level of the participants....)

-"The Long Game" aka: War.

Quiet time coloring!

9:00pm: Suppertime.
-Please refer to the daily dinner menu in order to see the daily supper menu.
-Possibly insert tomato salad and mango's.
-We use utensils, they use hands. They hover around us at the end of the meals, ready to eat whatever we leave behind.

9:30pm: Bedtime!
We see the kids off to bed by tucking them into their bunk beds and setting up their mosquito nets.

9:40pm -10:30pm: Downtime.
-Every night this time period got smaller and smaller.... the first few nights we played crib and drank wine, but after a few days exhaustion kicked in and we started going to bed when the kids did.
-Brush teeth.
-Wet-nap off dust.
-Eat smuggled fruit
-Chug bottled water
-Tuck in mosquito net.
-ZZzzzz.....

Nic, tucking in her mosquito net which I'm sure was very comfortable due to the soft African breeze that inevitably blew threw the numerous holes in it. Safety first here in Malaria-land.

2:00am: Wake up
-Because, silly you, you chugged too much water before bed.
-Climb out of the mosquito net and find flashlight without waking others. Ha.
-Luckily the orphanage recently built washrooms, and so a run to the loo wasn't the end of the world.

5:30am: Wake up
-Plot the roosters death as he screams outside of your window.
-Mentally note that a closed window in Africa does not equal the sound-proof/weather-proof equivalent of a closed window in Canada.

Repeat.

Year 27, Day 109 - Africa

Cultural Adjustments


Wake up! Its 8:30am!


The kids are already awake even though its Saturday. My hours are messed up these days from working in a nightclub until 4 or 5am most nights, combine that with the jet-lag, and I'm pretty much a disaster anytime before 11am. Despite this, I slept well with all the fresh air that moves through the center, and also with the knowledge that I slept safely in a gated compound with a security guard who roams the grounds in the night. Luckily, there is THE most bad-ass batch of home-made fresh ginger tea to wake me up. Breakfast consists of us eating bread with butter, and the kids eating sticky rice with their hands. Once everyone is fed, we spend the rest of the morning sharing the balloons and bouncy-balls that we brought from England for the kids to play with. They are beyond excited about any new toy or trinket, and I'm certain your average North American kid wouldn't blink an eye at being given a balloon or a bouncy ball.

"JJJo!" - as they called him, patiently monitoring the
"Everyone will get one! I promise!" balloon distribution process.
And people, it was a process.

This sounds obvious, but its the truth and it became glaringly obvious in Africa. Kids are kids, regardless of wealth, race, religion, global location or what they've survived. They are imaginative - they can entertain themselves for hours and hours in unknown make-believe worlds. They are reckless - even though they have so little, they still break the toys they do have. They're resilient - they don't want to wreak their one pair of good school shoes and so they play tag bare-foot on the gravel. They still need to be disciplined and given structure and boundaries. And ultimately - they just want to be loved.

Around noon, it appears as though the entire village has arrived at the orphanage. We are told that we are invited to participate in some Muslim prayers to celebrate Ramadan. It was interesting - girls on one side of the room, boys on the other, sitting on mats on the floor, chanting in foreign languages. I may or may not have had a brief nap though as it was an extremely long hour. 

Around 2pm, we shared a fest of chicken and rice. We realize that the odds are that this is definitely the live chicken they showed to us last night. Nicole eventually points out that the random males at the fest are attempting to take discrete pictures of us. Initially I don't believe her... until one of them walks up and snaps one right in my face. Before we knew what was happening we were consenting to them taking pictures of the 2 of us. Then they wanted pictures of us with the group of them.... then this eventually escalated to them taking pictures with their arms on our shoulders, then couples pictures. Yup. We are most defiantly are on some Muslim locker room wall.

We lay down for our afternoon nap - a necessary reprieve from hanging out constantly with the children. When we awaken, we help with laundry. This is a process and Dada is picky about the way things are done. Dada is Rahema's hired help. She lives at the orphanage and essentially takes care of everyone. She cooks most of the meals, washes the dishes, does all the laundry, minds the 14 kids, and even sleeps in their room with them. She never takes a break, or really even has a space of her own. Dada is only 28 years old. Amazingly enough she does all of this with a smile, wit and charisma. Even with her limited English we communicated fine and many of my fondest memories from the orphanage involve Dada and her antics. The laundry process involves hauling buckets of water up from the well by hand, then hand washing and scrubbing each and every inch of clothing with rough soap and a brush. Rinse. Repeat. Re-use rinse water for wash water. Hang inside out on the line to dry in the sun. And god-damn it those whites are whiter than mine. When the cloths are dry, you gather them by stacking them on your head. Women carry almost everything on their heads. I can say from experience this is easier said than done.

The room the 14 kids and Dada sleep in.

That evening we have a good laugh as Mary E has taken it upon herself to haul all of the water out of the well. Its now dry and there are like 20-some 5 gallon buckets ready and waiting for use. The orphanage well does not produce its own water and so its necessary to call and have some more delivered. Water is a luxury, repeatedly used, and is cherished.

Mary E hauling an entire well worth of water.

We spend the evening outside doing chores and playing with the kids. When it gets dark outside at around 7pm, we go inside, where hopefully the solar panel has been charged enough to provide electricity to the place. I always felt bad for the neighbors at this time as you could see them huddled around fires in their make-shift huts made from metal and wood. It gets cool when the sun goes down. We play cards with the kids until eating supper at 8:30pm. That night I discover that my bed is being eaten by termites.... awesome. I definitely was not sleeping alone last night...

 

Our room.... and my discovery of my many bed partners.

 

Year 27, Day 108

Karim's Children Care Center

I am still entirely in shock that I am in Africa. Rehema picks us up from the Kilimanjaro Airport and we all climb into a jeep that would never in a million years pass the English or Canadian standards for a road-worthy vehicle. There are no seat belts and I am never entirely certain my door is closed. To make matters worse there are clearly no traffic rules and its a freakin' free-for-all on the roads. We are also repeatedly urged to keep all valuables away from the windows or someone will steal them, regardless of whether the vehicle is moving or not. I think I spent the duration of the drive in shock about my global location, and also dazed by the sights, sounds and smells of an active African city.

We make our trek through the city of Arusha, Tanzania, and out to the orphanage which is about 15kms out of the city, but the drive takes more than 45 minutes because the dirt roads are so terrible. The amount of dust I inhaled was incredible. The location is seemingly random and secluded, until you realize that the junk piles and shotty-looking structures everywhere are actually peoples houses. On a clear day you can even see Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. We pull up to a gated building, and it becomes clear that even though they too are terribly impoverished, the kids we are about to help are the lucky ones. We arrive and find that 12 of the 14 kids are away at school, except the 2 babies: Ibrehim and Johnstone.

Within an hour of being there,
my heart is hooked as
Ibrehim falls asleep on me.

Mary E, Nic, Joe and I move into our room and find bunk beds and mosquito nets for all. "BUNKBEDS!? Room for so many activities!!!" We are already doped up on malaria pills, so the nets are just an added safety measure. After laying down for a team nap, I am awakened by the sounds of children singing and playing.

Nicole and I crawl out of bed and go somewhat hesitantly outside to where the children are... we just didn't really know what to expect. But people, I can absolutely guarantee you I will never forget the next moment for the rest of my life.

Johnstone,
is sweet and ubber fussy at the same time.
Always.

As soon as the kids spotted us, they came sprinting over at high speed and before I knew it, I was covered in beautiful little African children! They were hugging us, saying hello, asking our names, fighting to hold our hands, grabbing our legs, pulling us to come and play games. All 14 of them!!!!

It was ridiculously overwhelming, heart-warming, shocking, adorable and welcoming all at the same time. Initially it was nearly impossible to tell the children apart. Not even male from female! They all looked alike, had the same shaved heads (low maintenance, plus less likely to catch lice), and were even all wearing identical track suits. It took a few days to get them sorted, but so worth the wait. Each kid may have had a similar story - mostly orphaned from aids/hiv, but each kid was amazing and unique in his/her own way.

Asani, Onesmo, Hauwa, Sabrina and Antionia -
thankfully not all dressed identically.

Rehema founded the orphanage over 3 years ago as a means of coping with the tragic passing of her son, Karim, and the center was named after him. She started small, and eventually grew. She is working towards the dream of becoming a self-sufficient center. Once Rehema partnered with a Canadian advocate named Linda, and consequently with Bridges of Hope, a Lethbridge, Alberta - based development agency, things started happening and the center grew into what it is today. We found out after being there a week that the center was even featured on Oprah last year. 

To learn more about the Center's beginnings, check out this facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=51967053796&topic=7830

My special adopted Brother.

Year 27, Day 107

The Family is all here!

Cue the Sesame Street song: "One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong." Its official - with the arrival of Nic's brother Joe, I'm the only brown-haired, brown-eyed child of the Wright-Barreth clan. There's one in every family. Its me, Nic, Joe and Momma Mary E versus Africa.

The flight to Africa doesn't leave until late this evening and so we kill some time exploring London's Camden Town Market. It absolutely blows my mind and reminds me of the markets in Thailand. I intend to come back here soon and throw down some major cash, provided I either:

a) marry rich
b) get the nerve up to recklessly max out my credit card
c) get an English big-kid job

At this rate I'm banking on option b.

Admittedly, it does make me somewhat nervous to be having "Courtney and Kristen Do Asia 2010" flashback-memories only hours before attempting to jump continents to Africa. I mean, between the Amazing Race style passport renewals, 2 missed departure flights, 3 nearly-missed domestic flights, and 1 missed international flight home due to ignorance of the 24-hour clock... it was not the smoothest of trips. But I've got a secret weapon this time. Momma Mary E is what we would call a Type A-Personality. She's in control and I'm happy to go along for the ride!

Can you tell which one of these things is genetically not the same???
Ya me neither.

Ear plugs - in. Eye mask - on. Sleeping bag - yes we brought that too - awesome!
I've become a seasoned flyer and its a peaceful 10 hour over-night flight from London, England to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. This is followed by general chaos and disorganization during our highly questionable visa application process where they take your passports away, take your fingerprints, and you pay $50 USA to get them back with a teeny-tiny stamp on them. This is my first introduction to how things roll in Africa. Basically like Asia. Basically in their own way and on their one time. African time. And always in a means that appears completely unorganized, and yet the job gets done. We then have a small lay-over and a 1 hour flight to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

Outside the airport we suddenly find ourselves stranded. Where is our ride? There was supposed to be someone from the orphanage here to pick our asses up. Did we mix up the days? Oh dear. No body wrote down the phone number. Or the lady's last name. Or the address of where we are supposed to stay. And our high-tech internet loving phones are useless as there is no such thing as convenient wireless internet in Africa. During this time it becomes clear that a new game of "One of these things just isn't the same. One of these things just doesn't belong" has begun. We are approached by everyone and anyone offering to give us a ride, or carry our bags for a tip. We are Mazunga's now. White people. And therefore we have money. People even yell "Muzunga" at vehicles we are in and constantly stare. Its entirely unnerving at first, and then after a while you just get used to it and stare back. After a solid well-that-was-silly-of-us-now-what? hour, our ride arrives!!! Rahma is the founder of Karim's Orphanage and is therefore our host for the next 10 days.

Cue the next chapter of life.

Year 27, Day 106

London Bound Baby!
The Africa countdown has ended, and you know its going to be an interesting adventure when.....

1) After 3 hours of sleep you are shocked awake by your travel partner Nic, who is wiggling her index finger in  your face as her own special impression of an alarm clock.
2) You walk to the bus stop lugging massive backpacks in the rain.
3) Decide mid rainy-photo-opt that Nic and I spend too much time together as we are starting to look alike.
4) You scandalize Nicole's Catholic Momma Mary E with revelations that underwear is always optional.
Never mandatory. Even in dresses.
5) On the train-ride to London the wife busts out the "Oh! I forgot to tell you! I signed you up as a contestant for the next Bachelorette!" She even sent a picture to the producers and used buzz words like process and journey.

Regardless, these are the moments that make everyday fun and fabulous... and also why we need our own reality show.

We're like a married couple who begin to look alike and dress alike.
Or like those people who begin to look like their pets.

We spend the rest of our day squealing like school girls about leaving for Africa in 24 hours, and set about distracting ourselves from counting the minutes by traipsing around London. These distractions included window shopping, having the mandatory caesars and poutine at the Maple Leaf Pub, paying £18 aka $28 Canadian for 2 small glasses of wine - served in high-class plastic glasses at the musical Chicago, and introducing Mary E to the wonders of eating greasy English kebabs in bed. Awesome!

Caesars are an example of Canadian you don't know what you got till its gone....

Exploring the streets of London at twilight in the pouring rain is much less glamorous than it sounds.
I promise.

Its hard to believe that this trip to Africa is upon us! 

First, because for years its been one of the most "how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-pull-that-off-safely?" items on my bucket list... the real-life list of things to do before I kick the bucket, which faithfully hangs on my Canadian refrigerator. Secondly, because it has been an impediment to English employment as its non-negotiable. And last, because this year of travel thus far has been divided into my own version of the Anno Domini Calender: Before Africa and After Africa.