January 1st, 2010
It's 2010!! Happy New Years :)
Yesterday was our last day of digging and helping out at the school. I'll miss the little kiddies but definately won't be missing the digging. My back and shoulders are in need of a massage....For the new years celebration, our supervisors hired a DJ and invited some locals to have a dance party. At first it was a small crowd of youth, then some other kids (10-15 year olds) came and danced with us. Some more people our own age joined in. It was fun dancing under the moon light.... We headed to bed after midnight.
This morning, another goat was being slaughtered for our new years dinner and also 4 chickens. Another
chicken chase was on the go this morning, since it got away over night... pretty funny watching 5 grown men chasing a chicken...We head back to Dar this Sunday and move in with our host families:)
I'm excited for that, can't wait to learn to make Chapati...mmmm this flaky bread pancake thing...that you eat with saucey dishes (That's my only way of really explaining it) but it's sooo good. My host family is living at the Uvikiuta Eco-village. Not sure what they entails but I guess I'll soon find out, We did find out our workplacement, we had the choice between the Yatima Orphanage, Uvikiuta Community Library/Office work, Eco-village Compost Program or Tree Nursery.My 1st choice was the Orphanage then the Library then the others. Turns out I was the only one who had the Orphanage as my first choice :) So that's where I'll be! I think the other volunteers were turned off from working with the kids in Lindi... so none of them wanted to work with kids at the Orphanage. I'm happy about that since I got my first choice. Don't know much about it right now, but I'll be doing some sort of needs assessment to put the money that we fundraised in Canada to use.
That's the update thus far, I'll hopefully get the chance to go online on the weekends :)
December 26th, 2009
Rain... oh rain...
It's been 4 days of rain so far, I guess in the south currently is is the rainy season which gives farmers around here a bit of a break and hope for the next crop season. The rain storms are pretty ridiculous though, the other night... everyone in the room got woken up at 3AM because of the ridiculously loud thunder happening outside. It felt like the lighting was hitting the building and was deafening. I tried recording the sounds on my MP3 Player, but kept missing the really loud bangs. Some even sounded like gunshots in your ear and would make you cringe. The most amazing aspect was the lightning that would light up the entire sky and you could see it spread across the ocean infront of us. I lopve storm watching and maybe sometime when I come home, I could drive up to Shediac or Peggy's Cove to watch a storm, would be awesome! :)
At the workcamp, it's much quieter now since the other international volunteers (12 of them) have left. I miss them though, eventhough we only spent just over a week with them. Some I clicked with right away. If I get the chance to go to Europe in the next year, I think I'll even give them a shout and we could meet up. Most fo the volunteers were >25 years old and had been in the work
environment for sometime, I got into some deep conversations about career moves with them and I think I know have some other things to ponder about when I get back. There's about 70 days to go before we return to Canada, not that I'm not enjoying my time, but I so excited to get into other things when I get back. So many people have told me to take it easy when I get back... which I sorta will... but at the end of the day I think it's just my personality to be on the go all the time.December 25, 2009
Oh Christmas Tree...Oh Christmas Tree...Last Friday, we had gone to the school to see the kids and hand out Christmas presents to them. Many of the international volunteers (not from CWY) had brought lots of goodies for the kids, from balloons to crayons to candy and balls. It's amazing how the kids get worked up over the smallest things. The group which I work wth (5 year olds) are obsessed with balloons and bubbles. As soon as they see you with a blown up balloon, it's as if you ahve a magic wand. They listen to you, their eyes are glued to your every move until you lket go of that little red floaty thing. We gave eat kid their own balloon and crayons along with some little candies. Some of them took a little while to figure out it was actually candy, which was hilarious to watch.. they would stick the entire candy cane in their mouths wrapper and all... then we would have to pull it out of their mouths to show them how to open it. Giving the kids gifts was a highlight, but also... caotic.
Kids were fighting over candy and steling each others candy and older kids came over and bullied the lil ones to give them candy, we had a few teary eyes by the end of it all but most conflicts were resolved. It's hard to avoid jealousy amongst the children, they have all grown up in similar living situations and when you don't give the big kid something that the lil one has you're basically asking for trouble. We tried as much as we could to prevent that, each kid did get something, but conflicts still arised.Before the international volunteers had left, there was one little girl that Yvonne (Canadian Volunteer who I helped out with) and I had grown very fond of.
We're not suppose to pick "favorites" in the group, but sometimes there's just that one kid that you're drawn to. I'd say I have a couple favorites, but I don't necessarily treat them differently. Ruti is the one who Yvonne and I adore. She's the smallest of them all, she never complains when she gets pushed or doesn't get the ball, she just sits there listening to us intently (atleast we think she is). She's absolutely adorble! Well.. Ruti.. hadn't shown up for several days before Yvonne was leaving...On christmas day Yvonne wanted to see Ruti one last time, so we got one of the other kids to bring us to her home. After a decently long walk to the other side of the village, we got there. We gave Ruti her balloon and candy and crayons, you could just see her face light up and she smiled and shyly backed up towards the house. An older lady then came out and introduced herself as Ruti's grandmother, she then explained to us that Ruti's parents had passed away from AIDS and she was HIV+. That's why Ruti hadn't been to the 
school in the last couple days, she wasn't feeling well. Her grandmother then went into the house and showed us hospital paperwork documenting Ruti's condition. At that point, Yvonne, Adol and I were trying really hard not to cry. Yvonne then talked about somehow sponsoring Ruti and asked her grandmother to send me contact info the next week (Since Yvonne was leaving). We then walked away... It still seems a bit surreal, you always hear about stories and and how people are affected by the disease but seeing it first hand is when it actually hits you. We had visited two HIV/AIDS local organizations in Lindi last week and heard about local initiatives to education and prevent the spread of the disease. Medications for people who are affected by the disease is free of charge, but nutritional needs are on their own, thus many people still suffer dearly from lack of daily nutrition. I wonder of the 150 some children/youth in the village, how many are affected by HIV/AIDS....After finding out about Ruti I definately wasn't in the greatest mood, but as we were walking back, we passed the main village entrance and heard VERY loud music playing. One of the other volunteers then waved us over to this little building surrounded by a fence made of palm leaves. As we peeked inside, we saw 40 kids all under the age of 10 breaking out their dance moves. It was amazing! These 5 year old kids have a better sense of rhythm than people I have seen in dance clubs back home. They new the words to all the songs...You could just see the kiddies were estatic over dancing. I made several videos of them dancing (try to post them somehow). After dancing up a storm with them it definately cheered me up a bit...
No comments:
Post a Comment