Home Sweet Home

We left for home at 8:40 pm on Saturday after a nerve wracking and long wait at the Kilimanjaro airport. It turns out that we had to pay an extra $10 USD to leave the country, but I was lucky because all I had was my Visa and one of the girls in our program had enough for all of us. We ran across the runway to the airport and boarded at 8:30 pm after waiting in line to check our bag for two hours. 


Both of the flights went by quickly and we landed in Minneapolis at 12:00 pm yesterday after 24 hours of travel. It feels so surreal to be home, but I was so glad to see my family waiting for me when I walked through the airport doors. Mom and I cried when we hugged and I'm pretty sure my dad got teary. Although we had plenty of ups and downs on our trip, I know that this trip has changed my life and hopefully I will look back on it positively in the future. Before we left everyone asked if we would return and I think I will in my future. I believe I want to come back to Tanzania or East Africa after I finish college and go while in medical school or residency. I hope that my trip this summer and my first trip out of the country is the first of many around the world. 

Our Last Night at Home

Last night was our last night in our homestays, how sad! Unfortunately Kelsey and I both got sick on Thursday night and all day Friday. I don't know how we both seem to keep getting sick on the same nights at unfortunate times, must have been something we ate at home. 

But on Thursday we decided to make one last trip to Arusha using the TCDC shuttle and we signed up for the return shuttle to bring us home at 5:45. That would leave us enough time to have dinner with our families and to hang out for our last night at home. So we arrived in Arusha around 1:30 and decided to shop for a bit and grab last minute things before Saturday. Around 4:30 we walked to Africafe to wait for the shuttle across the street. We sat and ate a little snack before going home. I wasn't feeling the best, so I was ready to leave. So then we waited.....and waited......and waited because we have known the shuttle to be late because they have to pick up school children to bring back to TCDC. But when it was 6:30 and started getting dark out, we started to worry. Unfortunately, all of the people that had brought their Tanzania cell phones had sold them back, and I forgot mine at home so we couldn't even call TCDC to see if the shuttle was on its way. 

Luckily the owner of the restaurant let us use his phone. We called TCDC to ask where the shuttle was, and it turns out that the shuttle had already come and gone..apparently without thinking about the six girls signed up for the return shuttle home. So here we were, sitting in the restaurant with no cell phones and I was sick and could hardly walk. And all TCDC said on the phone was "Oh, sorry. There's dali-dalahs that will take you back about a 15 minute walk from there." So we had to basically run in the twilight down the street to the dali-dalah's jammed full of people. I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time, but luckily we were able to find a taxi to bring us home. 

We didn't get home that night until 7:30 when it was already pitch dark outside. Our Baba had been trying to call us, but I forgot my phone at home and Kelsey sold hers. We felt so bad that we were late and that they had been worrying. We quickly took our last bucket shower ever and were ready for dinner. They were cute and made us brown rice (which is like a dirty, fried rice) that is our favorite, but I felt so sick I could hardly eat any of it :( They also bought the whole family different types of soda (that are much better here because they are made of real sugar). We felt pretty bad for being late and not being able to spend much of our last night with them, but we loved our family and we were so glad that they allowed us to stay with them. I will miss everyone: Mama, Baba, Vivian, Venance, Brian, Victor, Dada Lilian, and Dada Jacquelin. They were always so nice to us and helped us out, even if we didn't speak that much Swahili. Our homestay will definitely be one of the highlights of our trip.

Rally Against Violence Towards Women

I can't believe this is the start of our last week in Tanzania! We leave Saturday evening Tanzania time and will return on Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis. I have a bittersweet feeling about leaving. On one hand, I am ready to go home because I miss my friends and family, but on the other hand, I know this has been the trip of a lifetime and something that I know has changed me. We are trying to fit in a bunch of small activities before we leave on Saturday.

Our trip on Friday to Moshi to visit the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center went well. We found our old teacher Dr. Judith in the pediatric ward. She showed us the three wards that pediatrics has in the private hospital. Most of the wards were not full because of the physicians' strike. The hospital was unable to admit many patients and is also unable to refer complicated cases to higher level hospitals because those are also on strike. It is daunting to think about all of the people that may die because of the physicians' strike.One of the girls from the University of Minnesota who was in Tanzania for spring semester said there had been a strike earlier in the spring, and approximately 500 people died across the country because of the strike. Dr. Judith said she believed the strike wouldn't last past this week, so hopefully they can come to an agreement for the patients.

Yesterday, we went with our public health teacher Mackrine to a rally that she organized. Mackrine founded her own NGO called HIMS that works very closely with the Masai. Yesterday we journeyed to a remote Masai village near the border of Tanzania and Kenya to protest violence towards women, especially pregnant women. Mackrine has worked almost exclusively with the Masai villages to promote health and wellness. The rally was started because a pregnant woman had been killed three weeks ago by her husband. The husband was put in jail and left their three year old daughter an orphan.

We began the rally by walking in a parade through the village, past the men washing their faces in the community water and those selling goods at the market. The school children sang as they walked and we clapped to the rhythm. It was almost surreal to be in the middle of a peaceful march through a Masai village in the middle of Africa, but we had a lot of fun.  I believe the rally was a success, but we couldn't understand all of it because it was in either Swahili or Masai. But judging from the reactions we got, I would say people really understood the message. I hope we were able to cause some awareness and maybe change in the village from our afternoon spent there. I know there are customs that have been in place for thousands of years, but I firmly believe we made a difference on Monday and hopefully stopped violence from entering another family.

The school children getting ready for the parade.

Abbie, Whitney, and Kelsey with our sign to hold during the parade.

Villagers watching our parade begin

We made friends while walking through the parade

Masai men washing at the community water well

Villagers at the market watching our parade

The special guests sitting at the front of the rally