Moshi Town

I can't emphasize enough how much I am loving the culture, the people, and even the food that we've gotten to eat (that will get a separate post a little later).  However, I figured that some day I would have to write a post that shows some of the less glamorous aspects of living in Moshi.  So far, we have traveled to the rural areas and villages, much of which are inhabited by beautiful landscapes and amazing scenery. The exact opposite is true of Moshi town itself. The town is actual quite small, but there are over 200,000 people that crowd the streets everyday. There aren't many road signs or even signs for small shops, so if you don't know exactly where you are going you might have to search for a while. Many people from the villages travel to the Moshi town to sell products right on the street. There are people with all types of foods, clothing, shoes, cheap jewelry, etc. They lay everything out on a sheet right on the sidewalk.

You will see that most women are wearing khanga or kitenge as skirts. Also, women are able to carry a LOT by placing it on their heads.

There are three main roundabouts in the city. This is the clock tower, which designates the center of town.

A lot of people walk places if they are not using the dala dala. Crossing the street here has developed into an art form! Pedestrians surely do NOT have the right of way around here. It becomes like a life size game of frogger!

Traffic is always busy and there are no traffic lights or stop signs. So if you want to cross the street you find an opening, and don't hesitate!

A woman walking down the street carrying her baby with a Kitenge.  Many women use these pieces of fabric to hold their babies. Much cheaper than a Baby Bjorn, and it's even more interesting to watch how they strap them in place.

There are many areas of Moshi. To get to CCBRT, we travel through an industrial part of town called Pasua. The roads are very bumpy, and extremely dusty.

 

Welcome to Bodeni Street in Pasua. There is a market here every morning that is crowded with many people trying to buy food and other goods for very cheap. We were informed that the activity in this area is illegal, and there is a high density of thieves..

We have made a lot of "friends" in our house as well! When we first got to Motivation House we realized that there were a few little creatures inhabiting our home. There aren't any screens on the windows, which always need to be open because it's so hot. We eventually got used to these little things running around.

These little chameleons aren't too bad. But they do make a really strange noise and they startle me quite often as I'm not used to things running all over the walls.

That is all for now. Other than the constant dirty feet and dust in the face I am enjoying living here. I am slowly becoming familiar with the culture and getting used to all aspects of living in Moshi.


- K

Meserani Snake Park

Today Krista and I took an adventure to Arusha to go to the Meserani Snake Park. Finding a bus was pretty easy, but it took about 2 hours to get to Arusha. Then we had to figure out where the snake park was. We ended up just getting a taxi to drive us out there, wait for us, and then drive us back to the bus station. Once we got into the park, there were several different types of snakes and some other animals too. We had a guide to tell us all about the snakes, and we ended up holding one too!

Some of the snakes that we saw. There were so many of them, all different sizes. We also saw some owls, a vulture, a yellow baboon, some crocodiles, and some turtles.

I have to laugh because although I was slightly afraid of the snake, I was more irritated by the tail that was whipping me in the face and almost went into my mouth!

Baby crocodile!

We then took a tour through the Masai Museum, and learned about the Masai people and their culture. After the  museum, there was a Masai market, which was essentially just a dozen or more huts with little souvenirs in. We ended our trip with a ride on a camel!

Women in the tribe build the huts out of sticks, cow dung, mud, and water. Inside of the hut you can see a couple of brown jugs, they use these to hold the mixture of milk and cow blood that they drink.

Men in the tribe (and sometimes women) are circumcised after age 15. They are not allowed to show any signs of pain or weakness or they are banned from the tribe and are never allowed to get married.

They make their own type of beer from honey, aloe vera leaves, water, and sugar.

- K

Chemka Hot Springs

Today Krista and I went to the hot springs with Ruston, one of the rehabilitation assistants at CCBRT. I guess the hot springs is a pretty popular place with the Mzungus.  We took a bus from Moshi to Boma Ng' ombe. Don't ask me how to pronounce it, because most of the trip consisted of Ruston and our taxi driver trying to teach us, but I still can't do it. Once we got to Boma Ng' ombe, we took a taxi to the springs. It took about 45 minutes and it was a very bumpy ride (the taxi even had a very flat tire by the end of the trip), but it was worth it. 

The "hot" springs were more like "warm" springs, but the water was an amazingly clear blue and the area was covered by big trees with crazy roots. There were some local boys swinging from a rope swing, and we had a chance to take a few turns too.

The gorgeous, crystal clear, blue water!

There was a little creek that you could swim down with trees surrounding it.

Ruston and I

Next adventure: Meserani Snake Park in Arusha!

- K

Week of Intensive Treatment

We've finally been able to work with some kids this week during the week of intensive treatment (WIT). We started following a case from the first evaluation and will continue to monitor her progress next week when we visit her in the village at her home. She is an extremely adorable 1 1/2 year old with athetoid cerebral palsy. We got to meet the mother and the father in the initial evaluation last week, and then the mother brought the child back for this week of intensive treatment. There are quite a few families involved in WIT where the grandmother is the sole guardian for the child. It is common in Tanzania for women to have children at very young ages, and it is sad to see when the mother and father abandon babies that are born with disabilities. This mother was very young, and also had another child. It was nice to see the parents involved in improving the quality of life for this little one.

The following pictures show the events of the past week. The pictures have been altered to protect the privacy of this precious little one, but I had to show some of the things we have been learning and working on.

We participated in the evaluation, and came up with a treatment plan to improve head and trunk control, and to increase weight bearing tolerance to improve joint stability.

My new bracelet that I bought from Msandaka school for the deaf worked out well as a toy!

This is a picture of her in the prone stander. She is wrapped in several Kitenges, which are an African garment similar to a sarong. These are used by women as clothing, as scarves, and most often seen as baby slings

 

She is currently unable to sit independently. So we referred her to the wheelchair clinic for a seating assessment.  

A few "before" pictures. Often times when women have children with disabilities they leave the child lying on the ground when they are busy doing household work. 
With a wheelchair, the baby is able to sit upright and improve functional interactions.

 This is during the fitting part of the assessment. On the left is Neophita, the Occupational Therapist, and main therapist for wheelchair assessments.

 

 The "after" picture. They made several different custom adjustments to the chair.

 The finished product. She is such a doll, and very fun to work with!

Off of the topic of work, today was our Friday due to a Muslim "moon" holiday tomorrow. This gave us an opportunity to try the "spirit of the nation." Konyagi is a popular liquor and is sold for pretty cheap. Smells kind of like gin, but tastes pretty good paired with Fanta.

Apparently the tradition says you must hit the bottom of the bottle with your elbow to crack the seal for good luck. 
I was unsuccessful in my attempts to open the bottle, so we had to resort to asking our night guard to open it. 
(NOTE: he also had a difficult time opening the bottle and we ended up getting a knife to crack the seal).

-K 

Watoto Wapole

Children here are fabulous, hence the watoto wapole (cool children).

We've been doing a lot of traveling out into the communities this week, which is always fun because they are so excited to see new people. Being a minority has been one of the more difficult things to get used to, everybody staring and following you around. Kids are the funnest to run into, if someone knows a little bit of English they will always shout it out to you- Mzungu! Good Morning!!   This most often occurs at night, which I always think is funny.

First we traveled to another BCC (Building Caring Community). Apparently there are 11 different BCC's that are associated with CCBRT. We walked down to a local primary school to chat with some of the teachers about their students with disabilities. When we first arrived the children ran up to us and grabbed our hands and yanked us inside. While Lily was speaking to the teachers in Swahili, the kiddos were whipping out their notebooks and showing us all of their homework and writing. One of the little boys saw I had a camera, and insisted I snap a photo.

Next was another school visit. Mwereni is a primary school specialized in educating students with visual impairments. There are about 75 students who are visually impaired and they are mixed in classes with students without impairments. In total there are around 600 students. The school is actually a boarding school for the visually impaired students, while a day school for the other students. 

The first thing I'd like to enlighten you with is the topic of albinism in Tanzania. They typically prefer the term person with albinism (PWA) instead of "albino."  This condition results in a lack of pigmentation in the hair, skin and eyes, causing vulnerability to sun exposure and bright light. Almost all people with albinism are visually impaired, with the majority being classified as “legally blind”.  This school had a very large number of PWA.

Albinism related attacks are growing in parts of Tanzania due to the belief that the body parts of PWA possess magical powers capable of bringing riches if used in potions produced by local witchdoctors. There are some evil people that kidnap children and murder them for their body parts to sell on the street. It's quite horrifying.  Some other myths surrounding albinism include that they are not human, and that touching them will bring bad luck, sickness or even death. 

As a result of these and other myths, many families do not bother to educate their children with albinism. Also, employers avoid hiring a PWA due to fears that their customers and staff will "catch" the condition, or that food would be contaminated. Sadly, in some social settings, many PWA are not offered the same kind of social & physical contact, due to this kind of misinformation. 

The lack of, or reduced levels of, melanin in the skin of a PWA creates high risk for skin cancer due to sun exposure. Combine this with the profound lack of protective sunscreens, wide brimmed hats and proper clothing in Tanzania and you find epidemic rates of skin cancer in all ages. As a result, the average life expectancy for a PWA in Tanzania is 30 years, with only 2% living beyond 40 years. 

 

You can see by the pictures that all of the children with albinism are covered by wide brimmed hats and are protecting their skin from the sun.

 

This school had a special building that was designed for a "play area" for these children. The windows are tinted so that they are more protected from the sunlight.This is also where the children ate their meals.

There is also a considerable lack of glasses, magnifiers and specialized vision sensitive computer equipment in Tanzania. This results in tremendous difficulty completing educational programs, increasing the likelihood of dropping out and subsequent unemployment. We went into a few different classrooms, and noticed that in every room the children that were visually impaired sat very close to the blackboard. This school also has some incredible technology for the children. They actually had two separate computer labs, one with normal computers for the children without impairments, and one with specially designed computers and computer programs for children with visual deficits.  

There is this program on the computer that reads everything out loud so you can navigate your way around without having to use the mouse. 

One of the things we learned about today was Braille. They had special typewriters for Braille and we were even taught how to use it! 

There are 6 keys which  make up 6 different dots. So the whole alphabet steps from different combinations of these.

The far right is Swi, our awesome bus driver. The tall one with the black shirt is Shedrack, the new physiotherapist that just started last week. Lily is the OT that has taken us around the community with her. And on the far left is the awesome guy who gave us a tour of the school (and I feel horrible for not remembering his name).

This is called an abacus. It's a counting frame used kind of like a calculator.

This school also had an onsite medical building, which was awesome. The building had quite a few exam rooms and a nurse on site with different medications available for the children. They also have a dentist that comes in once a month to see the children if needed. We also got to walk around the garden, which was very large and beautiful. They use the crops to help feed the children and also to make some money for other aspects of the school. 

 Banana trees are everywhere!

 I would love if this were my garden. Absolutely gorgeous.

We met quite a few children today. And most of them were more than willing to smile for the camera!

The kids were all full of energy and just inspiring to be around!

On our walk home we ran into our little neighbors again, which I cannot emphasize enough how adorable they are.  Like I said, watoto wapole! 

 And of course I had to throw in a picture of the pups romping around, they are getting bigger every day!

- K