Week Seven

I returned to my 3rd and 4th graders this week, after the school reopened from the Easter holidays. But sadly, it was only open for four days. The school is officially closed for the rainy season long break, so I will spend the rest of my time in Tanzania working at the Kili Kids orphanage. My last week at school was incredibly bittersweet, I was very heartbroken to leave my wonderful students, but thankful for the time I have had with them and touched by their sweet goodbyes.

I asked one of the teachers at the school to explain to the kids in Swahili that I would not be returning when they came back to school after rainy season, because I wanted to sure they all understood what was going on. I was glad I explained my departure to them, but it was hard to listen to their responses. I was flooded with questions of when I would return to Tanzania and if I would ever be their teacher again, on top of many of them flat out begging and pleading with me not to go. Despite their sadness, and my own sadness over saying goodbye, we enjoyed our last few days together and learned some "fun" English as well as played games and sang English songs.

On my last day I brought the kids lollipops, and you would have thought I was handing them a million dollars! We had a great celebration of our time together and most of them had made me precious goodbye cards with touching notes written in clever mixtures of Swahili and English. When I get home I plan to laminate everything they gave me and bind it together so I can always have something to remind me of just how wonderful and special my Tanzanian students were! My favorite notes were the ones where the kids made an obvious effort to include their favorite English words I taught them, such as eye and chicken!

My 4th graders sang to me for about ten minutes straight a traditional Swahili farewell song, it filled my eyes with tears, but I was able to pull myself together when they all cracked me up by asking for my autograph! I'm not sure why they wanted it, but I thought it was quite funny and it helped me laugh rather than cry as I left their class.

I actually just found a note one of my fourth graders hid in my book-bag as I was sitting down here at the internet cafe and rifling through to pull out my camera. It says verbatim:

"Thank teacha Elice fo teach me English. I lave you. - Eliwiza" I of course choked up again when I read it. I cant believe in such a short time how much these kids touched me! I hope they learned half as much from me as I learned from them. Here are some pictures from our celebration:

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Parsley

I have mentioned earlier in my posts that I have particularly bonded with one special little boy, Parsley, at the orphanage I visit. Parsley is HIV positive and since I have known him his health has been sadly declining. The week before Easter he had to be hospitalized because he had a very high fever, couldn't eat, and was losing weight rapidly. Because he was admitted so close to Easter, the doctors were not working and it was hard to get the tests and medical attention he needed. I was very worried I might not ever see the little guy again, but then on Easter morning I got a wonderful surprise! After all the rest in the hospital Parsley was well enough to come home! When I saw one of the orphanage workers walk in with Parsley in her arms on Easter my whole heart smiled!
Last week I got to play with Parsley several times and although he is much weaker than before (he can not stand anymore) he was in good spirits and as cute as always. After the kids saw the Lion King a few weeks ago, they play "Simba" all day long, and Parsley loves to craw on the floor after them making growling noises.
This Thursday however, when I went to visit him his whole body was covered in a rash, so he had to be taken back to the hospital. I have yet to hear his status, but please keep this precious boy in your prayers! He truly needs all the love and prayers he can get. Thank you.

Week Six

To begin with, I am so sorry it has been so long since I have updated this blog! I have suffered many obstacles in the past few weeks which prevented me from getting to the Internet. To begin with, Easter is a very important holiday here and so from Thursday to Tuesday of Easter weekend, EVERYTHING was closed in Tanzania. I know longer have Internet access at my house and even after the Internet cafes re-opened, because of rainy season the internet has become very unreliable and usually cuts out as soon as rain begins to fall (which is all the time!) Being cut off from my usual form of communication has been difficult, but nonetheless I am continuing to have a very wonderful time here in Tanzania.

I spent all of the days that my school was closed for Easter break working at the Kili kids orphanage, which was a blast and allowed me to get to know the older kids who were home from school. We threw an Easter carnival for everybody and had face-painting, three legged races, bean bag tosses, ect! The kids had never done anything like that so watching them enjoy these type of games for the first time was a real treat! Here is a picture of me and one of the older girls, Wittiness, she painted a heart on my cheek for me! And did quite a good job at it, I told her she should be an artist!

On Easter day I went with the orphanage to church. An African church on Easter is quite an amazing place to be! The music was so celebratory and exciting. The service consisted of nothing but singing and dancing with overwhelming joy, it was very different then what I am used to on Easter morning at First Presbyterian, but I cant imagine a more spirited atmosphere to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. The kids were adorable too! Getting to church with 23 kids is a challenge, but it was worth it to watch them enjoy the service. I had a wonderful surprise too, but I will divulge that in my next post!

After church I was invited to the home of the John, who drives me to my school every morning. I loved getting to see his home, it was very humble but a very happy place. All six of his adult children live with him in the small space with their children. The meal was absolutely fabulous, and I felt honored to have the opportunity to experience a true Tanzanian Easter feast!

My Birthday!

I was lucky enough to spend my 22nd birthday here in Tanzania! I wanted to post a picture of my cake, it was shaped like Africa!!! Also, it snowed on Kili last night, so I had the joy of waking up on my birthday to one of the most breathtaking views of the mountain yet!

My 22nd Birthday Cake!

Kili on 3/17/2008!

Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday I attended a service at Moshi Antioch Presbyterian Church. It was such a beautiful service, although I could not understand much because it was in Swahili. The church was founded by a husband and wife from Korea, who were so nice and welcoming! The whole congregation was overwhelmingly kind. During the service the children stared at my pew the whole time, and eventually one little girl came and sat in my lap. My favorite part was singing "I have a friend in Jesus" in Swahili! At the end the whole congregation left the sanctuary together to the beat of an African drum and then shook every single person's hand as they formed a big circle and sang a traditional African hymn, it was just beautiful!

The kids watching me from their pewThe Sanctuary

The outside of Moshi Antioch Presbyterian Church

The Lion King

On Sunday we had a special treat at Kili Kids Orphanage. We showed the kids there the movie The Lion King. For those of you who dont remember, not only does the Lion King take place with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background, but there is a lot of Swahili throughout the movie, such as Simba (lion) Rafiki (friend) Hakuna Matata (no worries) Asante Sena (thanks).
Most of these kids had never seen a movie, so that was a treat to begin with, but to see a movie that takes place right in their own backyard with bits of their own language was such a neat experience for the kids! And all the volunteers

Nema Orphange

Last Saturday I went on an adventure with one ohter volunteer, Nicki, to a new orphanage called Nema. The orphanage is about 17 Ks away from where we live, so we had to travel by dala dala to get there. The dala dala is a size of a mini van, only with about 25 people in it, needless to say it was a bit of a tight ride. We went all the way up a mountain before we finally got out at our stop. The only problem was, we werent sure what to do from there, so we wandered down the mountain until some nice people finally understood our botched Swahili and were able to point us in the right direction. It was worthe the logn journey to get to Nema though because our help was much appreciated. The orphange has 30 babies, all under the age of three and only about five nuns on staff. So we spent the day holding the smaller babies and giving them some one on one attention that they never recieve. I even got to hold a baby that was only a few days old! Here are some pictures: