The day after my adventure with the twins, I embarked on my Kilimanjaro trekking trip. I was so excited that I woke up a half hour early to get all my stuff ready and be prepared for when the taxi arrived. I had to travel to Moshi (a city about a half hour away) from Arusha and was accompanied by a man named Dula. Unfortunately, we had to spend an hour at the bus station to find out that again the bus drivers were striking so we had to either wait two hours for the next available bus or take a private taxi. After talking with the guide, he told us that we wouldn’t have time to wait for the bus, so we had to take a taxi (which 10 times more expensive). After driving to Moshi, waiting another 2 hours for guides and the rest of my group to show up (again, Africa is teaching me a lot of lessons in patience), we finally headed to the Machame gate. At the gate I met my two new partners in crime, Camie and Tyler, a couple from the US who would be my hiking partners for the next 6 days. We became fast friends after we watched a huge Blue Monkey dig through the trash while we ate our lunch-after that we named ourselves “Team Trash Monkey.” After waiting another hour or so for the guides to arrange the crew, pay for our park permits and check our gear, we finally started our trek!

Dula and the taxi driver waiting with me for 2 hours...they taught me the phrase "Faruheia meisha" meaning "Enjoy Life"

Machame gate-day 1!!

Day 1, 4.5 hours of hiking, rainforest, rainy, approximately 50 degrees F, rose to 9,958 ft: Day 1 started from the Machame gate (the route we followed was called Machame Route) and began with a huge gravel road surrounded by rainforest. The route immediately started with a few gradual hills, and I was really, really worried when I was already sucking wind after the first hill.  Fortunately, I adjusted to the elevation in heart rate and Camie, Tyler and I were able to chat and tell our life stories. It turns out Camie and Tyler are both lawyers in the military and are currently living thousands of miles away as Camie works for the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and Tyler is still living in the states. They hadn’t seen each other for 5 months, but nonetheless were insistent they were excited to have another person on their trek (I’m still not sure if I ruined their couples trip or not, but either way they made me feel like they were really excited to have me along!). Our guide, Living, (who calls himself Livingston because a lot of clients thought he was saying “Hi I’m leaving” and then become confused) let us set the pace the first day since the elevation wasn’t that high and the route was relatively easy trekking as it was mostly a gravel path. After about 3 hours of trekking through the beautiful rainforest Living told us that we were “very close to camp.” It turns out Living’s definition of “very close” is not the same as our American definition so we were shocked when we didn’t reach camp for another hour and a half. We arrived to our first camp wet from the rain and a little tired, but still excited that we had rocked day 1. Living told us he was very proud of us and could tell we were a strong group. After we met some of the rest of our crew including Thomas and Shira, our ‘waiters’, Mashack the cook and our assistant guide, Sanga, we had a wonderful dinner and tucked into our sleeping bags for the night. We were a little disappointed because we couldn’t see much else besides our immediate surroundings and mist for most of day 1, however, when I got up at 4 am to use the outdoor lavatory, I saw a stunning view of the snow covered peak of Kili. It was the first time I had seen it and I could barely sleep the rest of the morning because I was so excited. 

Rocking the poncho-this would become my uniform for the next 6 days

Living and I

Day 2, trek to Shira camp, increase from 3,100 m to 3,850 m, approximately 60 degrees, mostly rainy, moreland topography: Day 2 started promising as it was sunny and we had an amazing view of the peak of Kili. The beginning of our hike started with a steep incline and climbing over huge rocks and boulders. This was actually a lot of fun and made us feel like we were actually climbing a mountain. After about an hour of beautiful weather and fun climbing, the heavy mist started creeping up the mountain and within minutes enveloped us (it is exactly like the mist in the Hunger Games except it doesn’t kill you). By lunch we were shivering, soaking wet (my poncho ripped all the way down the middle) and ready for camp. After a couple more hours of hiking in the rain, we eventually made it to camp. We huddled in the mess tent for tea and honestly, we were really scared of how cold, tired and wet we were. We were supposed to hike up to 4,600 m and come back down to camp in order to acclimate, however, we were too tired and wet so we decided to rest instead. After doing a short walk to some caves where guides and climbers used to stay before tents were invented, we all tried to rest and warm up in our tents.  That night we still were pretty damp (no fires are allowed on the mountain so there really is no way to heat up anything with the exception of the gas stove they use to cook our food with) and our morale was pretty low as the rain showed no signs of stopping and we were preparing for a 7-8 hour hike the next day. The guides helped us increase our spirits a little and again, when we woke up in the middle of the night to pee we saw an amazing view of Kili (frustratingly, the rain always cleared at about 3 am and held off until about 9:30 am which is when we always started hiking), which again helped us get excited again.

Kili!!!!!

Senior pictures-day 2

Day 3, trek to Baranko Valley, trekked up to 4,700 m, then back down to 3,900 m in order to acclimate, rainy, 50 degrees, 8 hours of hiking. Day 3 was really long as the rain began as soon as we started hiking. We quickly put on our ponchos and rain jackets, but it turns our my rain jacket was not so waterproof and my poncho was not very helpful as it ripped down the middle. Again by lunch we were shivering, cold and wet but our guides really helped keep our spirits up by chatting with us, singing songs to us and setting up a hut for lunch for us using our ponchos and trekking poles. We hike through moreland and dessert and eventually made it to Lava Tower, which was at 4,700 m. After spending a few minutes at 4,700 m to get us acclimated, we started our descent back down to 3,900 m. Our descent began with us literally climbing down a waterfall (at which point I found out my gloves that were marketed as waterproof were really not waterproof at all). After climbing down the waterfall, we continued to descend through the moreland and due to the rain this basically consisted of us trying to do controlled sliding down muddy switchbacks. In the middle of our descent the rain cleared up for about 10 minutes and gave us another beautiful view of Kili. It was amazing just how much this helped our spirits and made the rest of the day much easier to handle. With sore knees and shivering from the rocky, muddy and wet descent, we finally made it to Baranko Valley and tried to warm up for the night.

Day 3 was our “testing day” to see how we handled the long trek and how we handled altitude. Even with the rain the guides were impressed with us and said they were very hopeful we would make it to the summit. They really were wonderful about taking our wet clothes and drying them as best they could, and again were key in helping us raise our spirits. They also were adamant about us eating well and drinking at least 3 liters of water per day (really annoying when you have to stop and pee off the trail every hour!!) to fend off altitude sickness. At this point, Camie had lost her appetite and had some nausea but Tyler and I were still feeling pretty good. We again shoved down some dinner (the food was really delicious-thanks Mashack!) and tried to warm up in our sleeping bags. 

Trekking through the moreland in rain

Still smiling!

Campsite...with just a glimmer of blue sky 

Day 4: trek to Karango, trekked up to 4,700 m again, camped at 3,900 m again, sun for 2 hours!! Day 4 started with all of us wet, shivering and in pretty dismal spirits as we staggered to the mess tent for breakfast at 7 am. The guides assured us we would be okay, but we were really discouraged as we just could not seem to get warm. Suddenly, right after breakfast, sun swept across our camp. Never in my life have I so appreciated the power of the sun to warm, dry and raise spirits. Within minutes the entire camp site looked like it had thrown up as we all took our wet clothes and sleeping bags and hung them on rocks to dry. Due to the sun, we delayed our hiking and just literally soaked up every minute of the sun that we could.

Eventually we started our day, which started with an 800 m ascent to the top of what they call “Breakfast Hill”. This again was a really fun climb; we were on hand and foot climbing over boulders and at one point were literally hanging onto rocks over a cliff (this rock was called ‘kissing rock’). The guides were amazing and keeping us safe and eventually we reached the top of breakfast hill with no problems. Unfortunately, it had again started raining, but we all felt better because we had started the day dry and warm and no one was feeling the altitude sickness severely yet.

After another few hours of a muddy, wet, slightly controlled sliding descent, we reach Karango at approximately 4,100 m elevation. Unfortunately, at this point Tyler became pretty nauseated and sick so we really tried hard to rest and push fluids overnight. 

So happy there is sun!!

yay!!!!! dry clothes!!!

Climbing up to breakfast hill

Day 5:  Karango-Barafut base camp at 4,600 m, then summit at midnight. Rainy all day, started at 60 F, ended at 35 F. Because Camie and Tyler decided to do the 7 day trek versus the 6 day trek, I decided to stick with them and do the summit on Day 5 instead of Day 4 (normally people bypass camping at Karango and head straight to base camp). Therefore, Day 5 was all about getting to base camp and resting as we were getting up at midnight to summit. Again, by the time we arrived to base camp we were wet and even colder as we were so high up the temperatures dropped to around 35 degrees. As we arrived at basecamp we had about 15 minutes of sun, but then were overtaken by a huge wind and snow storm for about an hour. That afternoon we napped and then right before dinner the wind and snow cleared so all the campers emerged from their tents to observe the sunset. At this point I was able to meet a couple of Denmark, a man from Tanzania and three men from New Zealand who were all going to summit that night. Almost everyone at this point had some degree of altitude sickness, and one of the guys from New Zealand had been vomiting for the past 48 hours straight.  Camie at this point was feeling better but Tyler’s nausea and anorexia had become worse. After the beautiful sunset , we huddled in the mess tent for dinner where our guides briefed us on the summit and encouraged us that even though we were still really wet and cold that they would dry our clothes as much as they could and we would make it. We were supposed to eat a big dinner, push fluids and then rest for a few hours before we woke up at 11:00 pm to start our summit at 1:00 am. I left dinner feeling too excited to sleep so unfortunately I only slept about 1 hour, but either way was really ready for the summit!

Lava Tower-4700 m 

Hiking to base camp-getting so close!

Made it to camp!

Base camp

Day 6: Summit to 4,985 m and descent down to 3,100 m . 19 hours of hiking total, clear!! In true African style, the wakeup call from Thomas came one hour late, at midnight (I had been up since 11:00 pm since I was too excited to sleep). I emerged excitedly from my tent and couldn’t believe the beautiful snow covered peak above us. I fortunately was feeling amazing and besides a couple spells of queasiness and lightheadedness had had no signs or symptoms of altitude sickness. Unfortunately, Tyler and Camie were not as lucky (altitude sickness is truly luck of the draw) and Tyler especially was having some pretty severe nausea, abdominal pain and a headache. Altitude sickness or not, they both were champions and we started our summit trek at 1:30 am in complete darkness. Living kept calling on our “ja power” or moon power, which actually worked as our ascent was quiet, without strong winds and very clear (apparently a lot of times the ascent has up to 50 mph winds with sleet and snow). The moon also helped illuminate our rocky path and the 6 of us slowly trekked up through the sand and snow.  After some ginger tea, a chocolate bar and 5 hours of hiking, I saw the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life. We sat on the side of the snow covered mountain for about a half hour watching it, and then eventually made the rest of our ascent to Stella point, or the “silver” peak. After Stella point, we slowly made our wait to the “gold” peak or Uhuru peak. Again, most people were feeling really sick at this point, but Camie and Tyler were absolute rockstars and despite feeling terrible, we all made it to the peak! (I somehow felt fine the whole time and am thanking my lucky stars that I was spared of altitude sickness!) At Uhuru peak Tyler popped the question to Camie and she said yes!! After taking a few pictures and giving a round of hugs, the guides encouraged us to start descending to prevent further sickness. I stayed for a while with my guide Thabit, but eventually we headed down back towards base camp.

The descent was actually the hardest part for me as we took the exact same route down as we took up, which meant a lot of controlled sliding with trekking poles and trying not to fall all the way down the mountain. The sun also came out in full force without me realizing it and soon I felt my face and hands were so sunburned and I was sweating profusely. After about 2-3 hours we made it back to camp for a short rest and lunch. At that point they broke the news to us that even though we had hiked 7 hours up to the summit, and 2-3 hours back down, we had another 5 hours of descent to go. They really wanted to get us out of base camp as apparently altitude sickness is accumulative and the longer we stayed at base camp the more likely we would all suffer. The 5 hour descent was really painful for me as it was rocky and steep. My knees and quads were really sore when we eventually reached camp around 7 pm, but fortunately Tyler’s headache and Camie’s nausea had resolved. In total we had hiked 19 hours that day and as such I could barely eat dinner without passing out. I went to bed at 8:30 pm exhausted but so proud and happy that we had all summited and made it back down safely!

Ginger tea break 

On our way to the top at 2:00 am

Ongeza kichwa

We made it!

Trekking to Gold

Sunrise!

Day 7: Full descent back to Machame gate. At 6:00 am Thomas again woke up me with coffee as we prepared for our final descent. At this point, I felt like something was wrong and soon realized (after taking some selfies because I didn’t have a mirror) that my entire bottom lip had swollen to 4 times its normal size. Luckily, by the time breakfast had come around the swelling decreased somewhat, but I was still kicking myself for getting so sunburned. After saying our goodbyes to our fellow trekkers and having a sendoff song for our crew, we started our final hike toward Machame gate. This descent was a little smoother and after a few hours we arrived to the gate. The end was definitely bittersweet as I was still exhausted from the day before and could barely walk another step but was sad the week was already over. Typical for me, I was also really sad to leave my Kili family and had some sad goodbyes with the crew over a Kilimanjaro beer.

The end of 19 hours of hiking

Our crew!

Back down in Moshi safely!

Overall, even with the 6 days straight of rain, the cold and some of our team being sick, I was so proud of Team Trash Monkey! I am so thankful to all of my guides and the rest of my team for getting me to the top and could not have done it without them. I can’t say enough about the tenacity of these guides, porters and cooks. Every day they carried about 50 kg (or just over 100 lbs) of gear, food, gas, water and supplies for us. While we were sucking wind just carrying our day packs which weighed approximately 15 lbs, they were carrying at least 4 times that and were passing us without even blinking on the trails. Two of our porters actually became lost and almost lost their lives due to hypothermia and were sent down from the mountain. However, the entire time they are smiling, taking care of us and making sure our experience is enjoyable. Again, I cannot thank them enough for their work!

The experience was truly one of the coolest but toughest things I have done mentally (mostly because of the cold and rain), but worth every step. As my guide Living kept saying, it was “cooler than a crazy banana in the fridge”.  I learned so much about myself, my stamina and my breaking points along the way, and some of the lessons I learned I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life!

We made it!

Uhuru peak! Gold!!

My adventure Tanzania continues to be a character building experience, mostly focused on increasing patience. After I was dropped off by the Diocese driver (which is the most expensive ride I have ever taken), I was handed over to a very nice man named Edward. He picked me up from the bus station and we took the public bus to Moshi and then to Arusha. The bus stations here are an experience in and of itself; there are huge busses with random sayings like “Jesus Loves Me” and “Las Vegas” spray painted across the front and pictures of celebrities from Usher to the Pope pasted on the side, hundreds of men yelling and corralling customers onto their buses, other people hold up scaffolding filled with cheap sunglasses and phone chargers to the bus windows and other people holding up baskets of sodas and peanuts to sell to customers. Overall, the first time it was quite overwhelming, but we made it to Arusha safely and he showed me into this lovely home with his wonderful wife, Evodia.

The village school Edward built with the help of American volunteers

Over the next few days, I hung around Edward while he worked. Edward is a lawyer/farmer/tour guide and although at first I questioned how well he could do all of them as he was spread so thin, he really is making it work somehow.  We have visited his farm twice now, which is located in a village at the foot of Kilimanjaro and populated with the Mesai tribe. The first day we took a tour of his land and then sat around a local shop where the men gather to drink beer, soda and talk about local events and weather. As I began to meet more people I soon realized this is the village where Edward actually grew up and still has family. As such, he began to reveal to me his plan about developing the village. Like most Tanzanians, he is frustrated with the lack of funding from the government for rural education and health care. From this frustration he has developed a plan to bring a school and eventually a hospital to the area. It turns out his farming endeavor is solely to start funding these projects and his tour guide business also helps with this as volunteers can come help do construction, teaching and find funding. His work has already brought a school to the village, which has 4 teachers, 6 classrooms and now educates approximately 150 students per year. The kids that attend primary school there have nowhere else to go to school and would otherwise be left uneducated. Edward also hopes to build a secondary school nearby someday as after they graduate from his school, they have to walk at least 7-10 miles to the nearest secondary school. (Once when I was out there I saw several of these secondary students walking home in the pouring rain and mud at 6:00 pm).

Mesai village shop owners, the one on the right is named "Martin Luther King" :)

Filling her prescriptions

Additionally, the villagers have little to no access to any health care. The nearest “hospital” is where the secondary school is (approximately 7 miles away by dirt road), but really is not well staffed and is more of a clinic than a hospital. Because of this, many of the villagers have to travel for hours to the nearest hospital in Arusha in order to receive proper care . The day before I left for my Kilimanjaro trek, I was with Edward in Arusha, and he informed me that a villager was in the country hospital waiting to be seen by a doctor so he was going to stop by and see what he could do. When we arrived she was part of a line of at least 100 people and was waiting with her mother and twin 4 month old daughters to be seen. Edward worked some magic (I have no idea what kind of strings he pulled) to get her and her babies seen. After she was seen (which consisted of a bare minimal physical exam and a generic antibiotic prescription), they had to start making their way to the village. As Edward and I were planning on going to the village anyway to see the site for his potential hospital, we decided to help escort them back. I was not at all prepared for how hard this task would be. I was in charge of holding one of the 4 month old babies while we walked around Arusha to fill her prescription and find a bus to take us to the village. It turned out there was actually a bus strike that day in Arusha (the drivers were upset because the government was not giving them enough funding to buy fuel), so we had to wait in the dirt parking lot of the bus stand and sit on old tires while we waited for some sort of transportation. Again, Edward somehow worked some magic and after an hour or so we piled into a taxi van (I think it was a private car that just decided to help give rides that day in exchange for cash) along with 10 other people. We barely had room for us and the babies, so unfortunately, we had to leave their grandma behind in Arusha to find her own way back. The van ride out to the village took 2 hours and luckily these 4 month olds were the most happy and content babies I have ever been around. Besides being peed on several times because they had soaked through their kitenge diapers and plastic bags, they were a pleasure to hold and take care of as they either slept or smiled at me the entire time. When we finally arrived to the “main” part of the village, Edward looked and me and said, “okay now we have to take a boda boda to the village.” This meant I had to take a 4 month old in one arm, my purse in the other and get on the back of a motorbike to drive the 7 miles on dirt road throughout the farm fields in order to get these babies and their mom back home. Shockingly, we all arrived to their hut safely and the family was so grateful for our help that they made us hard boiled eggs for lunch. It was truly a crazy day for me, and I can’t believe how cliché but also real my experience of rural Africa has been. For so long I have prayed and schemed and planned to be able to understand the difficulties that women and children face to receive health care and to be able to do something about it, and the opportunity literally plopped itself in my lap unexpectedly in the form of two 4 month old angels.

Waiting at the bus station for a way to get to the village!

Apenge and Abigaili

Potential site for the hospital!

It is because of this exact scenario that Edward wants to build a hospital in the village so that people don’t have to travel to such great lengths to receive care. I really hope that someday this becomes a reality and am even hoping that when I am done with residency I can play in a role in the development!

Hearts of Gold

Just when I think that this experience couldn’t be more surreal and wonderful, Africans surprise me and show me just how welcoming, kind and thoughtful they really are. After a long week full of C sections (one which got me out of bed at 1 am), appendectomies, vaginal exams and hypertensive patients, Sister Dora invited me to her house (which I should really call an oasis) for a much needed respite. To get to her house we took piki-piki’s, aka motorbike taxis, down a beautiful dirt road that wove in between layered fields of beans, banana trees and papaya plants embedded in the mountain.  When we arrived to her village, Bethel, we were greeted by an army of barefooted children (who of course shouted “muzungu! Muzungu! over and over). We then took a little path all the way to her house, which actually I should call a compound as it has three separate buildings, a chicken coop and a small barn with 2 milking cows.

Our afternoon tea in Dora's lovely home

Sister Dora and her buddy

Sister Dora's beautiful secret garden

Being at her house was like being at a 4 star hotel. Since being here I have been taking ice cold showers and have been scrounging to charge my electronics at every outlet in the hospital because my apartment has no electricity. At Sister Dora’s there were outlets that worked, she brought me warm water to bathe in, there was a toilet I could sit down on, and a lastly I had a really, really, REALLY, comfy bed with 4 pillows. I almost cried I was so happy. She made me an awesome dinner of chipsi (aka French fries), fresh vegetables, rice and beef. We talked about her family a lot during dinner; her husband lives about an hour away in a city because he has a job as a pastor there while she needs to stay up here in the mountains because the hospital and church need her so badly. Her three children also live down in the cities and have successful careers of their own. She talked a lot about how hard her and her husband worked to make sure that their kids did not inherit some of the gender roles that I described in my previous blog. She talked about how proud she is that her son helps with the cooking and fetching of water, while both of her daughters hold degrees and are continuing in higher education. 

After talking with her I realized how things seem to really be changing for a lot of Tanzanians and Africans in general. Africa’s economic and social development has largely been student by post-colonial mentalities, corrupt government, violence, substance abuse, unequal gender roles, lack of education and various violations of basic human rights. However, when you talk to a lot of them, each are doing their part and have hope that the new generation is going to change things. Many talk about how they are becoming intolerant of the government officials keeping most of the money to themselves to buy their vacation homes, and instead are demanding it go to education, health care and infrastructure. They are emphasizing education of their daughters and are pushing for family planning so they can chose when they want to be mothers. Some men are leaving their bar stools and starting to help their wives and children at home. Even some of the resident physicians I talked to in Uganda were very cogniscent of how their practice of medicine was being limited by corruption and improper use of government funds. One young physician said to me, “Our physicians are smart, talented and compassionate, but they work in a broken system every day that eventually breaks a lot of them down personally. That is why I want to go into health policy and change things so we can have a blood pressure cuff that works, operative theatres that are ready for patients and other basic things to help our patients.” While I think anyone will tell you that Africa has a long way to go, Africans themselves are definitely starting to turn the wheel of change in their everyday lives.

Taking a piki-piki to Dora's

After my wonderful night away from my off the grid apartment, I returned to the hospital. I expressed that I wanted to get some photos of the physicians and the hospital, but I was not prepared for the apparent very camera happy Tanzanians. After our morning meeting, everyone wanted a picture with me and then wanted several group photos. They told me I was welcome to take pictures with patients as long as I asked so I was able to get a few photos of some of my favorites, including a mom who we had done a C section on the day before. This particular mom was special to me because she had lost her first baby one day after he was born (I’m still not sure what happened), so needless to say she was very anxious about this pregnancy. Every time we checked on her during antenatal rounds she was tearful and anxious because she wanted a baby so badly. Therefore, I was dismayed when I arrived to the 1 am C section call the other night and realized it was her we were sectioning. Her labor had somehow gone wrong and the baby seemed to not be tolerating it well. When we delivered the baby, things did not look good. The baby was blue, not moving and not breathing on her own. I stood stunned as the doctor left the table to resuscitate the baby, leaving me with a rapidly bleeding uterus and a placenta to deliver. Thankfully, the team was able to resuscitate the baby and now both mom and baby are doing well. Needless to say, this woman had an impact on me and I was so elated that she avoided a second heartbreak.

Using the fetoscope

Me and Mama Msemo!! I'm going to miss my mentor so much!

Later that day I checked on another mom going into labor and decided I would wait around the hospital for her to deliver. Sister Dora told me she wanted to have dinner with me at 6 pm at Mama Joyce’s so I figured I would wait at the hospital monitoring this mom’s labor. Obviously this meant that at 5:15pm the mom I had been waiting for all day finally decided she wanted to start pushing (why can’t babies ever come when it is convenient for me!?!!? J) After a few pushes the team was doubtful this head was going to be able to fit through so they kept saying “Doctor Mali…epi….epi” meaning they wanted me to cut an episiotomy. These are not used a lot in America and definitely are not usually used without anesthesia so I told them I wasn’t comfortable cutting it. The midwife decided to go to bat for me and cut it and then I was able to deliver the baby within a few minutes. However, this baby also did not look good so the midwife and assistant had to go resuscitate baby. Again, I was left by myself with a placenta, bleeding mom and an episiotomy repair that I had to do without any anesthesia. I felt so bad repairing her tear without any sort of pain medicine and just kept saying “pole pole” (meaning “sorry sorry” in Swahili). Towards the end of my repair the midwife came back and kept saying “safi safi Dr. Mali” (meaning very nice, very nice Dr. Mali) so I felt pretty proud that even though I was torturing this poor woman at least I made her vagina look pretty! Again, as a testament to how strong these woman are, she even said a very earnest “asante sana” (thank you very much) to me after the repair and truly was appreciative of me. I could not believe her generosity towards me as I’m pretty sure I would have wanted to punch me right in the nose if I were her.

Gum boots for surgery

While the delivery, the resuscitated baby and my first solo episiotomy repair made me feel like I was on top of the world, I felt terrible as I was late to dinner with Sister Dora. I ran over to mama Joyce’s and was stunned when I was greeted by all the hospital staff. Apparently they had prepared a surprise going away dinner/party for me and greeted me by singing, clapping and handing me flowers. I couldn’t believe it and was in tears at how thoughtful they all are. The delicious dinner also included speeches by several of them who told me that I was a treasure (apparently my name means treasure in Swahili), that they felt like I had been working with them here for years, and that they wanted to thank my parents, family, friends, university and country for letting me come visit them. While this was so nice to hear, I truly believe this has nothing to do with the person I am but more about how deeply loving, thankful, kind and welcoming these people are. I would not have felt like family had they not extended their open arms to me, and I would not have been able to participate as much as I did had they not given me so much room to grow. I am forever indebted to their kindness, and I’m sure I failed to express to them how much I feel like the pleasure was all mine.  They encouraged me to return and I truly do hope that someday I will be able to help this hospital as much as it has helped me. (Mom, by the way, I volunteered your services so you might have to come with me next time!) I felt so incredibly special tonight and I feel lucky to be a part of this amazing group. I am so sad to leave, but know that I have made some lifelong colleagues, so I hope this blog serves to show how big their hearts of gold are. 

Vero (mama joyce's right hand girl) and I "being cool"

Mama Joyce and Mama Msemo love

Wrapping me in my new kitenge

The whole crew

"It's okay, don't worry"

After a wonderful week at the hospital as I described above, I had an amazing weekend. Friday, I met a peace core volunteer who is an American from New Jersey. After only seeing and speaking with Tanzanians for an entire week it was really, really, REALLY nice to be able to use my sarcasm and American humor again. It was really nice trading stories, quirks and observations of our experiences, including how our new names are “muzungu” and how noticeable we are EVERYWHERE  we go.

Mary, me and Chediel's mom cutting vegetables (well, I'm trying)

Saturday morning Chediel’s wonderful family (who I am now just going to refer to as my host family as I spend more time with them than I do at home) invited me to a wedding send off. In TZ, not only do they have a huge wedding ceremony and reception, but the wife’s family hosts a “send off” party where the bride receives gifts and is sent away from her home village or city to live with her new husband and his family. I arrived to the ceremony and was quickly stolen away from Chediel by his mother, who wrapped me in a kitenge (the colorful wraps), sat me down in a chair, handed me a knife, bucket and a bag of onions and put me to work. After a few minutes of me failing miserably to keep up with the onion peeling rate she expected of me, she took it from me and gave me mandaazi (donuts) and tea to sip on instead. As I sipped, I watched dozens of women cut vegetables, stir huge pots of boiling rice over wood burning fires, dance, laugh and prepare for the ceremony. After a while I started to feel really useless so I tried my hand at cutting up green pepper, which was again a miserable failure but the women were very appreciate and commented “it is so amazing and wonderful to see a muzugu (white person) participate in domestic activities!” (I didn’t really know what to say to that so I just smiled and chopped on). After Chediel decided that I was working too hard (I literally only chopped up 1 green pepper and 1 red onion), I went to sit with him and the other men who were congregating in a circle and drinking while the women prepared (I’ve noticed this happens a lot). At this point I realized all the chairs were still empty and it was 11 am-the ceremony was supposed to have started at 10 am. When I asked Chediel about this he looked at me and said, “its African time, so you have to add two hours.” Of course, how could I forget J. An hour later, some noise came the path to the ceremony and I saw a dozen or so men and women singing and clapping. Chediel explained this was the grooms family announcing their arrival (apparently they counted on it not starting on time). After they were greeted with hugs, tears and dancing, they took their seats. Slowly, men starting taking their seats, then Chediel made me sit down and eventually, at 1:30 PM the bride came down the aisle preceded by dancers and accompanied by he rmatron of honor and a “special bridal song” according to the guy sitting next to me.

Chediel emceeing while his parents say goodbye to his cousin 

The next few hours were full of clapping, singing, dancing, giving gifts, crying and the bride saying her goodbyes to her family. Afterwards, the meal was served and eventually the bride was taken by her husband’s family to the city of Arusha where their wedding would be held the next day. The whole ceremony was absolutely beautiful and I feel so lucky and honestly, a little bit awkward, to be there. I don’t know if it was because I was the only muzungu there or if it was because Chediel’s family wanted me to really feel like part of their family, but I felt like a guest of honor. They announced me during the ceremony, I helped Chediel’s mom give a ketenge to her mother and I announced the total amount of gift money given to the bride and groom and presented it to the groom (again, really awkward as this was my first time meeting both of them.) Either way, it was an amazing experience and I cannot thank the Daniel family enough for their karibu-ness.

After the ceremony, unfortunately Chediel’s parents had to travel to Arusha for the wedding (they had originally invited me to stay at their house that evening as they thought they would be there). Chediel and I therefore watched his mom’s store for her and then his sister, Eva, made us dinner (fried bananas, beef and pumpkin leaves) and their parents’ house. As soon as I came up to the house, Chediel’s daughter, Grace, took my bag from me, took my hand, and led me to the living room. We then ate, talked and eventually retired for the night. 

Women lining up with various utensils, plates and bowls to give to the couple

At this time, I want to comment on family roles I have observed in Tanzania. While Chediel has been a wonderful friend and host and without him this experience would not be nearly as rich, the women in his life are phenomenal. I am attempting to portray these gender and age roles in the least biased way possible as they are very different from the general American roles, but I do not believe this is all negative. Every meal that I have been served at Chediel’s house is made by either his mother or his sister Eva. Whenever Chediel and I are ready to eat, we sit around with his dad and any of the other men hanging around while he simply beckons to his sister Eva and BAM! there appears tea, bananas, meat, whatever else we are eating and water to wash my hands with. While this makes me feel really uncomfortable as I am used to everyone participating in the production of a meal (well, mostly everyone), this does not phase Chediel and I feel no resentment or begrudging from Eva. It simply is how the house functions. The children are even more astonishing to me as they do most of the housework and cleaning. The other night as I was about to take my really, really, REALLY muddy shoes off before entering the house he said to me, “don’t do that, we have enough kids around here to clean, they will mop later.” The next day, I saw his 10 year old Grace washing the household laundry and hanging it up to dry. Children as young as 3 or 4 are fully expected to not only participate, but do the majority of, laundry, dishes, running of errands and cleaning. (Suddenly I am feeling way worse about rolling my eyes at my mom when she asked me to empty the dishwasher). Moreover, I have never heard a child lip off, give attitude to, or debate their parents or elders. They are obedient, timid, shy, but also just as rambunctious and energetic as other children. Looking back at my childhood I feel embarrassed at how little I contributed to my household and while I would have put up a fight at the time, I wouldn’t have blamed my mother for making me chop a few more vegetables, do a few more loads of laundry and mop a few more floors. After doing a couple of loads of my own laundry manually, I have a newfound respect for how hard these Tanzanians are working to create a home. 

In addition, I have realized how far removed all of us in developed countries are from our food and from worrying about basic needs. As described above, women and children often spend entire weekends and several hours every day of the week just doing laundry, cleaning and preparing meals. With our technology, grocery stores, dry cleaning, house keepers, etc., some of us spend less than an hour a week on all of these combined. While I am really missing my Trader Joe's and Whirlpool there is something really satisfying and pure about doing your own laundry. In addition, it feels really amazing to eat food that I know was grown right in the village, has had no processing done or preservatives added and hasn't sat on a shelf for 3 weeks. While obviously there are many structural and economic reasons behind all of this, and we are so lucky to live in a country where we have these conveniences, there also is something to be said about doing a little more collective, family manual labor. I think how hard they work, and how much they have to work together, puts an indescribable bond in these families that is sometimes missing in our developed, air-conditioned, water heated homes. 

Off of my soapbox and back to the rest of the weekend, Sunday morning, Chediel and I (after another wonderful breakfast made by Miss Eva and Miss Grace) headed for his favorite site to take visitors-Dooguru Waterfall. Although he warned me that the hike was a little tough, when I asked him how long it would take us to reach the waterfall he said “ehh maybe 15 minutes.” 15 minutes later, we were nowhere near anything that looked like a waterfall and instead continued following two other local guys through farmer’s fields, past a medicine man’s house, down rocky mountain goat paths and finally to the top of a cliff where we saw the waterfall (which was definitely at least 30 minutes later). Chediel then explained that he brought the two other guys along because he wanted to take me to the very bottom of the waterfall, and he wasn’t quite sure of the way. I soon realized that no one really knew the way and found myself sliding the side of the cliff I had just looked over, while trying to grab onto every root, shrub and tree I could find (all of which were infested with nasty little biting ants). About halfway down I was about ready to kill Chediel as he kept telling me, "Its okay, don't worry, just go slow." Yeah, okay, Chediel, I'll just try and go slow as my arms are starting to break out from whatever poisonous bush I just touched and my feet are sliding out from under me. Finally, we reached the bottom, and I have to say, as crabby, dirty, itchy and sweaty as I was, it was absolutely worth it. The waterfall was breathtaking, and we spent the rest of the afternoon washing our feet off in the water and sunbathing on the rocks. The hike back up was much easier and afterward I felt really ready for Kili.

My guides

So fierce

A redbull waterfall selfie

My view during my nap

So happy to have made it back to the top alive!

Grace and I with her new backpack!

That afternoon, Chediel walked me back home, but not before we stopped at a store to get his daughter Grace a haircut (all the girls have to buzz their hair for school for some unknown reason to Chediel). Since she was so sweet to me all weekend I wanted to get also get Grace a small gift, when we went to the shop, she immediately picked out a purple backpack and a compass for her math class. I couldn't believe it-I was expecting her to want candy, or a toy, or anything that other 10 year olds want, but she wanted a school bag and a compass. After taking a really cute picture in our matching backpacks, I said good-bye to the Daniel family and went home for a long, cold shower.