Kigoma
Just a few things I wanted to touch on from the days before since I'm not as sleep deprived! Neighbors Without Borders (the school from yesterday) has lost a lot of its funding since the last time we were here. They were teaching a lot of trades like tailoring, carpentry, etc and those programs are not as fully functional as they were before. This is such a great school so it was sad to see that. Also when I said the first distribution was a tad unorganized I was being generous. Katie said it was the worst distribution she's ever done! I'm happy to say it did get better though! Ha! Also it was very very humid so between that & no sleep we have a little bit of an excuse!
So dinner last night was great as usual. We had cream of tomato soup, bread, beef or chicken with rice and vegetables (sort of like stir fry but not all put together), and salad. It was Patty's birthday so they made a birthday cake & sang to her! The cake was kind of like gingerbread but a little thicker. They gave me the biggest piece known to man while Sasha who was sitting beside me got a tiny little sliver. Katie ended up eating the top of my cake because she wanted the icing. Dinner was at 6:30 so we got done early enough for all of us to get a lot of sleep last night which was definitely needed.
This morning we all met for breakfast around 7:30 am. Breakfast consisted of fresh pineapple, fresh watermelon, cereal (frosted flakes or rice krispies), granola which Amber termed "air" because it had no taste, pancakes which are more like Crepes here, scrambled eggs, baked beans, & toast. It's buffet style so you can choose whatever you want. The scrambled eggs were good but you could tell they cooked them in a lot of butter! After breakfast we got on the first bus & headed to the 1st distribution.
Today we started at Sanganigwa B which is a school for street children. There are a few kids that stay there but generally they sleep elsewhere & just come there for school & food. This is the school where Anthony (the boy I still email with) was last time. This distribution went much smoother. I was a sizer along with Nora. The kids range in age and most of them did not know English but there were a few that did. After getting everyone through the line for new shoes we had a lot of time to play with the kids. Last time we did more distributions so we had less time to play. This time it's the opposite. We jumped rope, played hopscotch, and threw balls around. We passed out loads of stickers, silly bands, & painted tons of fingernails.
I passed out some sunglasses (mlwani-a word I remember well from last time) and took tons of pictures. I kept telling the kids to "cheka" (smile) and they would start giggling. They think it's funny when you know Swahili. I also learned the word for line (mustali) and for wait (sabeeli). I also talked to one of the older boys whose name was Abel. He is in grade level 4 & waiting for his results to move on to 5. After 6 is when they go to college or university. The grade levels are different than ours. He said he is studying economics & wants to be an economist. It's crazy that a kid who has no parents & lives like this even knows what an economist is. That's what is so amazing about Africa. The kids have big dreams despite having any kind of role model in their life.I also saw a boy here wearing a Rams Marshall Faulk jersey. He didn't speak English very well but with the help of another kid I explained to him that his jersey was from my city and that it was a football jersey. When you talk about football here you also have to explain what American football is because here soccer is very big. After I had explained it to him and had taken his picture, Marshall went up to him and started to tell him. I got their picture together as well. I thought it was pretty cool to see a little piece of home all the way in Kigoma.
We tried to take a group photo but it was pretty much a disaster so we scratched that pretty quickly because it was getting ready to storm so we got on the bus & moved to the next stop.
The next distribution was at Mwandiga Orphange. This is a Muslim school we visited last time. We got to the orphanage & waited on the bus for the hotel to bring us our lunches. While we were waiting the kids saw the bus & came out & surrounded it. Hundreds of kids were just standing outside & some of the group started taking their picture out the windows. Every time the flash would go off the kids would yell & laugh!
Our lunch finally came so they had to move all the kids back so they could bring it on the bus & so we wouldn't be eating in front of them. We had rice & beef along with a banana. Once we were done we headed in. This school had a ton of kids that needed shoes. This time I was a fitter. Just in case someone didn't read the blogs from my last trip a shoe distribution sort of goes like this: the kids line up in 2 lines. 2 people size the kids on a size chart and write the size on their hand. They then go to the fitter/ washer. If the place wee are in has water we will wash their feet but because some do not have it or only get it sparingly sometimes we just size. Each washer/fitter has a runner so when the kid sits down you look at their hand & the runner goes to get a pair of shoes out of the pile. You then make sure the shoe fits & the kid is on his way. Laurie was my runner & we were very quick! Our first customer of the day! Isn't she beautiful?
The funny thing about this distribution is that for the second time today St. Louis was represented. The team next to us fitted a girl wearing a St. Louis Blues shirt! I could not believe it. Another piece of home. What are the odds? Two in one day!
Because there were so many kids on this trip we also had a couple of people managing the line & they kept telling us we were super fast! After all the kids were done we went back outside to play. Katie had the kids all lined up playing Simon says but without the Simon part. She would do something & they would do it back. It was so funny & she had already been doing it for a very long time to keep the kids entertained so she was running out of stuff to do.
We tried to hand out gifts to the kids but it got way out of control so we had to stop. I thought poor Meredith was going to get knocked down! So we called it a day & headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately that just happens sometimes & it's hard to control that many kids so it's better to just leave. One thing that was special about this distro for me was that a woman on my last trip (Michele) had asked me before I left if I could take a pair of shoes over for her. Michele does shoe drives for Soles4Souls & someone had donated shoes to her & wrote her a note saying they would like their shoes to go to Tanzania specifically. He also said "too bad I can't get a picture to see who receives them." we'll Michele knew I was coming so she asked me if would give them out & get a pic & I was able to on this distro. The boy that got them loved them & they were all black which means he can use them as school shoes. Yay!
While todays distributions went much smoother they were still hectic because there were so many kids. We gave out over 750 pairs of shoes in just those 2 schools!! That is how great the need is here so if you are thinking about doing a trip please just do it! You will not regret it I promise!
We got back to the hotel a little early since we had to leave Mwandiga earlier than expected. Danielle, Amber, Sasha & I decided we would go sit by the pool & have a cocktail. Unfortunately they didn't have any! They don't stock alcohol here but can get it if someone requests it the day before No one had told them to get wine & beer for our group so we just had sodas instead. Katie said she's going to make us all wait until our last dinner now just to see if we go into withdrawal! It rained really hard earlier in the day so it really cooled off. It was actually a little chilly sitting out by the pool. While we were out there one of the staff members came over & gave us a Swahili lesson. I'm sure I won't remember anything though. I can't say enough how nice the staff is here or just everyone in general. The staff will teach you Swahili words every time they see you which is fun. At dinner they usually teach me the words of what we are eating so I learned "samaki" (fish) and "saladi" which is salad. We also had chicken or vegetable curry with rice, potatoes, pumpkin soup, and rolls. There is no shortage of white carbs at our dinners!! The fish was excellent! We also had "pilipili" on the table which is hot sauce. Meredith, Marshall & I all tried it & it was HOT! I am still waiting for the appearance of that spicy ketchup we had last time but haven't seen it so far. For dessert we had some kind of awesome warm chocolate cake or brownie with ice cream on top. It was so good!
For some reason we had a lot of laughs at this dinner & someone decided we should play a round of telephone before returning to our rooms. Patty came up with 2 phrases & they went around the table. She came up with hard ones & we were all cracking up by the end. After that we called it a night! Overall a great day!
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