HABARI!

Hello from Tanzania! Below are some pictures of the guest house that we are staying at. It is called  the motivation  house, and I guess that a lot of students stay here when they are working with CCBRT.

Some pics of the outside of motivation house and inside my room.

 We have a house dog, his name is Blackie.

And of course, the view of Kilimanjaro out our window every morning. 

I started my first day of work today at Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation of Tanzania (CCBRT). This morning we had breakfast prepared for us by our lovely house mama Olive.  I haven't eaten much in a couple days and only had a few bites of toast, and an orange juice. I think I'm still getting used to the environment and my stomach is being a little slow. 

There is a staff bus that leaves from our guest house and takes us to work every day at 6:45 which is very convenient. It picks up staff members along the way as well. Let me tell you a little something about the roads in Moshi. Most of the roads are decent, but there are A LOT of speed bumps, apparently put in due to too many deadly crashes.  If you aren't driving on a decent road then you are in for quite a ride. I can tell you that I have never been carsick in my life and I was praying to GOD that I wouldn't lose my breakfast all over the floor of this bus.   After a very long 45 minute ride, we made it and I felt a lot better.  Below is a "first day of school" picture in front of the clinic. 

The people at CCBRT are very friendly, and many do not speak very much English. The two occupational therapists, Neo and Lillian, gave us a brief orientation on what types of things we will be doing and showed us around the place. CCBRT is a lot larger than I was expecting and was very nice. More pictures will follow. I was quite impressed with the improvising they do on a daily basis due to a lack of resources.  If only we could learn from such creativity.  

This is their version of a standing frame. I can't wait to see it in use.

10:00 am is considered chai time. They provide instant coffee and chai tea every day. I decided to opt out today as my stomach was still feeling a bit queasy.  There are two cooks at CCBRT, and they prepare lunch every day for the staff for only 1,000 Tsh (1,500 Tsh = 1 USD). Today the meal was pilau and cooked cabbage. I wasn't very hungry around lunchtime but it was very tasty, and quite a deal for under a buck!  

After work the staff bus dropped us off in town and Neo helped us take money out of the ATM and get a sim card for our international phones. I must say, taking 400,000 Tsh out at one time seems like a great deal of money. However, I guess that only equals 252 USD. I am so grateful that we had Neo to help us out, because I'm pretty sure it would have been a nightmare trying to communicate about cell phones and money exchange with very limited Swahili background.  Today I realized that I need to learn Swahili, ASAP. My vocabulary has grown to a handful of words, which are only somewhat helpful. 

And lastly, a pic of a little pup because these things are running around everywhere over here and they are too cute.


- K