With love from africa

When I stepped off the plane into 90 degree weather when it was 8:00 pm i knew africa would be a challenge, and it definitely has been. I have learned more in these past two weeks than i have in the past two years. The decision to go to africa was one that i will absolutely never regret. I wake up to roosters, pigs, dogs, and chickens every morning and they all walk on the streets with everyone else. I love it here so much, i have decided to extend my stay for another month so that i will be able to participate in our biggest program that i am currently working on for HIV/AIDS awareness at White Orange Youth. I will also be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro at every end of my trip. I honestly don't even know how to start. I have talked to my family a couple times since i have been here and it is very hard to express what it is like living here and within the culture. The first couple of days when i arrived in Moshi we spent getting to know each other(everyone in my group is absolutely amazing, most are in college and are the coolest people i have ever meet), the town, our placement, and a little Swahili (we have class every day so i'm picking it up quickly). Visiting the village of Rau was definitely the first of many huge culture shocks that i have experienced. We stuffed onto a bus and once we got there we went to the chief of the village's house. Which was made out of mud, sticks and pieces of scrap metal (this was the nicest house we saw)...the chief was so proud, but not of his house...he was proud of his whole village, the people there and the life they live. As we walked through the village where there is no running water or electricity the children would run up to us and want to play and have pictures taken of them (sometimes they would pose which was absolutely adorable). Everyone says hello and wants us to come visit them, the children will play with absolutely anything. We went into one house where there was a 20 year old guy who was so thin you could see every bone in his body and had absolutely no muscle anywhere on his body...he was just laying there looking at us, they told us that he had fallen out of a tree a couple of years ago and had to go to the hospital for help, but he has only gotten worse since then. Aids was of course the first thing that ran through everyone's head, but you never know here. His mother was in the best of spirits...people in africa do not stress...ever...about anything (which me and my fellow volunteers have come to know as the biggest problem, but definitely amazing to experience), the smallest things make them happy and they ALWAYS smile. The pictures of the village don't even slightly show what it is like in real life. Then we started going to our placement, which i will talk about later. The first weekend we went on a four day safari in the Serengeti where we camped out for three nights. It was AMAZING. The first night we went to a masia village where we saw them give a traditional dance, got a tour of their huts (which are made out of cow fices and sticks), learned about their culture where they still perform female circumcision, and we got to play with the children. They were so excited when I gave them a pen, it was all they kept asking for. On the safari we saw everything...lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos,water buffalo, zebras....and sooo much more. I don't think I will ever be able to go to a Zoo ever again. The pictures are most definitely breath taking and watching the sun set and rise in the middle of the Serengeti is incredible!

As far as working with White Orange Youth...it has been crazy. Me and two other volunteers Peter and Graeme are working together to write grants for the program because they are now working with supporting orphans and street children buy paying for their education so they need more money because they cannot currently support all of the children that they want to. The people we are are working with do not know how to use computers at all, so they have no idea how to type or use search engines...its definitely weird to hear since we are programed to use the computer every since we popped out. Next week we will travel to remote villages with a translator teaching people about HIV/AIDS and teaching them about safe sex since 90% of Tanzanian's that have HIV/AIDS have contracted it through unsafe sex. And yes this does mean that I will teach people how to wear condoms...and yes i will look absolutely ridiculous doing it, but its always the small things that count the most. We are also working on promoting our big memorial candle light service that will be held May 17th with 3 other NGO's in Moshi.

Africa has thrown some pretty crazy stuff at us tho...the most recent story being that one of the young street children that we sponsor has not been going to school. So we were to find out why and where she was, since her school payments have already been paid for and hundreds of other children are waiting to take her place. So as we started looking into it we found out that she has been staying with a "witch doctor" in a town outside of hers. When we went to her mother's house her mother lied about where her daughter was staying and kept repeating that she was in the hospital, which she wasn't. Then we found her brother who told us that this witch doctor was using his sister for sex and her mother who is HIV positive is allowing it because the witch doctor is giving her drugs and telling her that a white man is going to pay to take her daughter back to the US and marry her. The girls that we were looking for is named Rosie and so we had to go to a Human Rights NGO and figure out how to handle the situation, they told us to go to the police. So once we got there the police told us that we had to pay them if they wanted us to go find this girl, and that if the mother has consented that its okay for Rosie to be living with this witch doctor (who is 65) then there is nothing we can do. So we had to go with the police to the witch doctors house because the NGO we are working for said that because we are white they will actually go, but if we leave they won't go. So just imagine 3 college kids in the back of a truck riding through the streets of Africa with 6 policeman carrying AK semi-automatics at 9 at night. So we got to the house and found the girl and brought her back with us, and they are currently looking for the witch doctor and are keeping the girl in safe custody. Imagine a clip from hotel Rwanda and just paste in our heads and thats pretty much how it looked.

So as you can tell Africa has been a crazy...but every interesting. We all love it here so much, I miss all you guys and i'll keep you posted on the Rosie situation.