Journey to the Village

I'm going to start this entry with a few things that happened yesterday before I dive into our trip to the village today. 

Yesterday we traveled with the wheelchair technicians to a small Christian community called BCC (building caring community). It is a Lutheran church that has a "day care" for disabled children. The "mama" of the group was very nice, even though she didn't speak a whole lot of English she did invite us in and let us take a seat with the children. I wish I could have more pictures of the kids on my blog, but it's not socially acceptable to take pictures without their consent and I haven't quite figured out how to say "can I take your picture?" in Swahili yet.  

 Some pictures of the grounds of BCC

CCBRT has an awesome wheelchair clinic. They customize chairs for children so they can be used on all sorts of terrains.  

Remmy is a wheelchair tech who speaks pretty good English.  He was teaching us how he modifies the chairs for each child. 

After work we walked up to the Neneu Hotel for dinner. We had our first Kilimanjaro beer, and for only 2,500 Tsh for 1/2 a liter (which we figured out was only $1.67)! It was a nice change of pace from drinking water all day, every day. Some of the guys at CCBRT laugh at us because we drink water so much, guess we're not used to the heat yet. 

KIBOSHO VILLAGE

Today we ventured off with Lily, the Occupational Therapist, into the Kibosho village. The land around this village is absolutely beautiful. I guess this area is well known for growing bananas, coffee, and mangoes. They also grow avocado but they aren't in season right now so we didn't see any.  The reason for our trip to the village was to follow up on some of the children and discuss further treatment, if needed.   We saw 5 children with varying diagnoses (CP, epilepsy, down syndrome, spina bifida, hydrocephalus). All of these children were absolutely adorable!  Also, a lot of children stare when they see white people and we were even called "Mzungu!" a few times today (which means white person in Swahili and I'm pretty sure it's somewhat derogatory).  

 Banana trees everywhere!

 Many of the huts looked similar to this, built with sticks and mud.

One thing I will never forget about today were the people. The caretakers of these children were so kind and generous with welcoming us into their homes. They all grabbed chairs for us and would say  "Karibuni" (which means welcome). I would always respond with "asante" (thank you), but it still doesn't seem like enough.  The first child's father gave us all mangoes to eat straight from the tree. I've never even eaten a mango before so I thought that was pretty cool, however I decided to stay away from eating the skin because the last thing I wanted to do was get sick in the middle of the forest. 

 A couple pictures of some different areas of the village.

Some of the children were doing really well when we went to visit them. One little girl was rolling around in her all-terrain wheelchair like nobody's business. However, there was an experience today that I will always remember. One of the children we saw was just a baby. Her mother had passed away a month ago and since then she was not doing so well. She had this worm that burrowed into her foot and one of the community health workers was digging it out with a needle and some leaves. She then continued to pour a little vodka over it. There were over 10 small children that were huddled around us watching, and I couldn't help but feel so sad for these kids.  All the while we are sitting about 1 foot from their mother's grave.  

Looking on the bright side, many of the families we saw participated in a program called "heifer international." CCBRT offers this program to help prevent malnutrition in children and help decrease poverty. They provide a goat to a family that has a child with disabilities to help provide the family with better nutrition and also money by allowing the family to sell the milk. I guess goat milk sells for 3 times what cow milk sells for.  Then, when the goat reproduces another family in need receives a goat. The next baby goat goes back to CCBRT and then any goat after that stays with the family.  CCBRT has about 100 families that are participating in this program right now, which has helped A LOT of people.... pretty cool I think.

After being in the hot sun for much of the day I am feeling exhausted. I'm not quite used to this atmosphere, but it is leaving me with a little color!  

I think I'm also feeling exhausted from listening and trying to understand conversations in Swahili. Right now I only have a couple words under my belt, but our first Swahili lesson is tomorrow so hopefully I can catch on quick.

Until then, baadaye (later)!

-K