Our big, small world ...

With this picture, I'd like to share the story of our introduction to this nice young man pictured with Pat, and of a moment which I had the most amazing sense that all of the experiences and relationships of my life led me to being exactly in the right place and moment in time.

First, some background. My mother in law, Bernice Lalley, gave me a St. Christopher medal for our trip. Now I wasn't raised Catholic, and attended the uber-Lutheran St. Olaf College, so medals aren't part of my religious upbringing. But Bernice is probably the most devout person I know, so when she gives me a medal which she has had blessed for a safe journey, I don't question it. And along the way, we have had some unusually close calls (ie earthquake, cyclone) and I have just rubbed my medal and we've made it through.

So a week ago, we were standing at the dala dala station trying to catch a bus home at the busiest time, and having no luck at all. People just pushed right past us, and we were getting close to dark, and we have been told not to take the dala dalas after dark for safety reasons. So Pat says "you'd better start rubbing your St. Christopher", which I had already been doing, and this nice young man leans over and asks where we are trying to go; we said "Ngaramtoni", and he says "I'm going to Ngaramtoni, just wait here with me and I'll get you on". So a few minutes later he guided us onto a bus, and as we took off he turned around and said "My name is Emmanuel, I am a social worker in hospice and palliative care, where are you from?" Both Pat and I were amazed, and told him we had been trying for two weeks to find a hospice program in Arusha to visit, and couldn't believe our good fortune in meeting him. He invited us to visit his program, which is through the Lutheran Hospital in Arusha. We had already visited both branches of the Lutheran Hospital through our visits with kids at the orphanages and schools. Emmanuel suggested we call on Dr. Mark Jacobson, the director of the hospital in Arusha, to get permission to spend time with the hospice team.

We had heard of Dr. Jacobson through the international health volunteering conference we attended in September; he has been quite remarkable in building health infrastructure in Tanzania, so we looked forward to meeting him. But it wasn't until I was seated outside his office that the thought occurred to me that he might have gone to St. Olaf, or be related to Jeanie Jacobson, who graduated in nursing with me in 1976. So after we chatted a while, I asked him if he went to St. Olaf, and he said "No, but two of my sisters did" and sure enough, one of them was Jeanie. Mark and Jeanie were from Stillwater, so they knew my old roommate Sal Schuneman, so for a few minutes it seemed like a very small world indeed.

Dr. Jacobson suggested we contact another hospice/palliative care doc in Arusha, Dr. Kristopher Hartwig, who had tea with us later that day. And yes, he went to St. Olaf too.

So we spent a wonderful day with the hospice/palliative care team which Pat will say more about, and one of the nurses - Paulina - has been to the US visiting hospice programs with my friend Jeanie Jacobson Morrison, who is now a hospice nurse herself. Paulina is so much like I remember Jeanie - warm, engaging, always welcoming and supportive - that I spent the day remembering my time at St. Olaf and feeling grateful for the years I spent there.

So, I am a St. Christopher medal-carrying Lutheran married to a Catholic who now has great respect for the Lutheran College he's been making fun of all these years, as the Lutherans have been a great support to Tanzania.

Hakuna Matata!

Our last day at Lasting Bless School ...

This is a picture of Naomi and Herman and their son Blessing, in front of their home and school, Lasting Bless. Naomi and Herman are struggling to keep this school open, as the 44 children who attend are from very poor families and only a handful have parents who can make occasional tuition payments. There is no support from their government. It is an eye opening experience to come from a country which provides free public education to all of its children and knowing after our brief time in Tanzania that education is essential to allow a safe and healthy life for these kids.

In any developing nation there are opportunities for exploitation of well meaning donors, but we have been so fortunate to encounter good and honest people like Naomi and Herman here. They have a vision to help their community through education and access to health care for these vulnerable children, and they are doing their very best to provide it. We are hoping to continue our friendship with them and to hopefully provide opportunities for support from our corner of the world. Junior (Said, pictured earlier) has certainly benefited from the loving care and support at Lasting Bless, and we know that other children will as well.

Lasting Bless School in Arusha ...

Rewards and blessings

As our 3 weeks of volunteering in Arusha, Tanzania come to an end we are reminded of how many rewards and blessings we have received. We were able to visit orphanages and daycares and saw children who had a variety of respiratory, intestinal, skin, and eye problems mainly caused by their living conditions. We learned about common African diseases - HIV, malaria- and treated some acute problems with medications that we purchased. You can buy whatever you want from pharmacies here if Africa without a Rx and they do have a good variety of meds to choose from ( meds are much cheaper here than in US). None of our work would have been possible without the help of Jessica Paul from Tanzania Volunteer Experience. She is a bright, beautiful, caring, confident, and wonderful person and arranged our visits and did our translation with kids and parents. We both felt that she will be find herself in a significant leadership position in Africa in the future with her law background and work ethic.

Both Deb and I came away with many wonderful impressions of Africa, especially it's children. They are a most vulnerable population with no guarantee for education, health and decent living conditions as they grow up. But we experienced every day the smiles and greetings of beautiful kids as we walked the streets to our placements. We even had one boy see us from way down the path as he was walking with his Mom to school. He flashed us a big grin and literally sprinted to hug us each day when we saw each other on our walk.

We also wanted to follow up on the little guy with HIV, Said. Deb was able to accompany him to his follow up visit to the hospital and he is now being cared for by a Pediatrician who specializes in HIV and community health. He was anemic but his other blood counts were stable. He is on meds for his anemia, recent infections, and preventive meds for his HIV. The reward and blessing is that he is happy and healthier now.

A healthier little boy ...

Safari with our English friends

Imagine riding through some of the most beautiful landscape in the world, standing and looking out the pop-up roof of a land cruiser, tent camping with the sounds of the wildebeest migrating less than 100 yards away, eating delicious food served on Masai colored table clothes, enjoying beautiful weather, and traveling with a very fun group who taught us how to pronounce G"eye"raffe, and Zebra like Debra, and seeing magnificent animals up close and in their natural environment....that is what our Safari experience was like. We visited Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti all within 3-5 hours of Arusha where we have been volunteering. We saw lions, leopards, cheetahs, rthinos, hippos, zebras, water buffalo, wart hogs, hyenas, impalas, gazelles, elephants, giraffes and many different species of birds. We both felt that this was a very special place with its natural beauty, animals co-existing side by side, humans observing but not disturbing their environment, and a true jewel of Africa. We have included some pictures of the trip. Our companions were co-volunteers from England - Phil, Lillie, Becka and Mike as well as Chewie our guide and Kinili our fabulous cook.

Cheetah on the prowl

The lion king ...

Beautiful Ngorogoro Crater

Rainbow over the Serengeti ...

Female lion up close ...

"Debra" the Zebra

Elephants on parade

Beautiful, loving children ...

Connecting a very sick little boy to his health resources in Arusha ...

Our home stay in Tanzania ...

Bright spirits amid many needs ...

Today is Sunday in Arusha and a chance to rest and catch up with our first weeks experience. Deb and I did an overnight to Moshi to see Mt.Kilamanjaro (~90 minutes by bus at $1.30 each). We were able to spend a lovely evening on a rooftop cafe taking in the view of the mountain and appreciating our time here in Africa. We are fortunate to be doing a homestay with 4 young people from England, 2 from Japan, 1 from Norway, and 1 from Kentucky. The food is basic - potatoes, rice, some type of beef (???), a few vegetables, and occ mango. The spices of India are a fond memory. The house is relatively new, clean, and for the most part the showers are hot. Each day we hike into town (20 minutes) and catch the local transportation - as Deb mentioned last time ...the daladala ( picture to be posted sometime while we are here).

Arusha sits at the base of Mount Meru ( second tallest peak in Africa) with lots of lush green around and colorful bushes and trees ( yellows, reds, oranges, white, purple, etc). The highway into town is under major construction and so lots of dust - we have all gone to showering in the evening!! Arusha sits in the upper portion of Tanzania just below Kenya.

Our volunteer experience began on Tuesday and we are trying to visit as many of the orphanages connected with TVE that we can. Our focus has been assessing needs, health ed ( hand washing/HIV prevention), acute and chronic care, and routine checkups for kids. We are managing to see about 30 kids per day in the make-shift exam room (pic). I have learned quickly that a kid with fever and flu symptoms here is more likely to have malaria, TB,or HIV infection than the usual colds we see back in the states. We have also made up first aid kits for each site and hopefully they will be useful. We were quite ignorant of the health system here in Tanzania but have come to learn that if you are sick that you go to the hospital. There does not appear to be routine clinics with outpt visits and social workers and public health nurses are a foreign concept.

On our first day we met Said Peter ( aka Junior) at Naomi's Lasting Bless school and orphanage. This little 4 y/o has HIV and has not previously treated for this. He has been getting more ill lately and on the day we visited he was having a nose bleed. We discussed prevention measures with the staff and agreed to make a hospital visit with Junior and his Mom the following day. On the day of the visit he was sicker with a draining ear and recurrent skin sores and fever. We visited a small hospital near our Homestay that primarily serves the Masai community. The staff were helpful, caring, and registered Junior as a patient ( he now has a medical home). Blood was drawn to confirm his HIV positive status ( pic) and he was given medications to treat his acute infection and a followup to further treat his HIV infection. We were proud and pleased to know that the medications to treat HIV are available for free in Tanzania for those who cannot afford ( almost everyone), and that they are provided from funding from USAID. Our government dollars well spent after you spend a day with this 4 year old. The challenge will still be to make sure he gets his meds, makes his follow up appts, and gets the nutrition to stay healthy.

Both Deb and I have realized in this one week how much we live in comfort back in the US. Here in Africa, life to us and many of you would seem uncomfortable - but for the people we have met and seen, it is obvious they are the most tolerant people - they don't complain about standing 90 minutes on a bus ride, cramming too many people into any kind of transportation, the dust, and the electricity going off at night on a regular basis. they still smile and greet each other and us with Hajambo (hello) with the usual reply of Poa (cool!!)

On the whole, people here love the US, especially Obama!! I am sure our President appreciates the love and support and we both wonder if he is getting any royalties from the Obama underwear sold daily along the street markets.

Sending along our warm greetings ( the weather has been lovely...sorry MN,Wisc and Mich).

Pat and Deb

Mambo, Tanzania ...

We arrived at Kilimanjaro Airport at 1:30 am on February 27th and were met as promised by the staff of the Tanzania Volunteer Experience (TVE), what a dedicated group they are! We had offered to get a hotel for our first night, but there isn't much around Kili Airport, and Jessica the placement coordinator and Michael the driver took us to the volunteer house about an hour away for our first night's stay. TVE is a local organization which has partnered with International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ) to provide lodging and volunteer placement.

The volunteer house is very nice, but I immediately looked around for bugs (bad idea) and found a huge (like three inches) black something, and had to practice my Yoga breathing to relax enough to get to sleep. Pat loves bugs, so slept like a baby.

The next morning Michael drove us to our home stay, which is very nice and there are two little girls living there who are about 5 years old. One goes to school, one doesn't, which is the challenge here as even if school is supported by the government, parents must buy books and uniforms and supplies so many children still don't attend. TVE has volunteers in many orphanages here, which are really more like schools and daycares for children who have lost their parents to AIDS, or whose parents cannot afford to feed and care for them during the day.

Pat and I will be doing medical visits to as many of these orphanages as we can, to do physical exams and some health teaching at each site. We visited a site yesterday, and today we have been buying supplies to put together first aid kits to bring them. We will be taking the local "daladalas" to the sites - these are vans with about 8 seats in them, but they cram 20-30 people in them, so please keep the prayers coming that we don't fall off one of them.

The people here so far are beautiful, very friendly, and understanding of our newness to the culture. The weather is warm and sunny, and we are looking forward to our first "rotating medical clinic" tomorrow.

Goodbye, Dharamsala ...

We left India with such great memories and experiences, and were more than a little sad to say goodbye. Our host family served us a Tibetan banquet on the evening of the 24th to celebrate my birthday the next day, and made a carrot cake (the carrots here are red and are sweeter, so the cake was delicious!). The next morning they tied white silk shawls around our necks, as is their custom for safe journey. We kept them on until we reached Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania with stops in Dubai and Addis Ababa.

We will remember beautiful mountains, great home cooked Tibetan food and lessons in making Mo Mo (Tibetan potstickers), and all of the colors and sounds and diversity that is India today. We hope that our new friends in India will keep in touch and visit us in Minnesota some day, but most of all we hope that these exiled Tibetan people will be able to return to a free Tibet in the future ...

Our last English conversation group ...