Before Shirati, we (us missionairies and the visiting USA team) were invited to one of the orphanage’s employee’s home. Mwita, the day guard and farm overseer, invited us to his home for supper. Also present at his home were his grandfather, mother and friends and of course his kids.

Supper consisted of rice, beans, some green beef (Pam says it’s cooked with green peppers to account for the green tint, at least no one got sick), and bananas. I’m including some photos of Mwita and family and friends. Quite the exerience, but I do consider Mwita as one of the friends I’ve made here. He doesn’t talk much English, but him and I communicate quite well, especially when it comes to farm stuff. He’s also one of the kindest men you’ll ever meet when it comes to children, but is also one of the strongest indviduals you’ll meet, so not a man to mess with.

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Here we are going to Mwita’s house. We had to abandon the truck and walk maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a mile to the edge of the housing area. It was just a path and we had to jump a couple of small creeks to get there. Here Pam is figuring out how to jump the creek.

Still on the path, but we’ve now picked up half the neighborhood kids.

We’ve now arrived. The hut on the left is storage, the one in the middle is a sitting/living area, the one on the right I think is storage and that third tree in from the right is the men’s choo (restroom). The living/sleeping hut is in line with the storage hut and is the typical round mud hut. Photos showing it are later.

This is Mwita and his family, and yes that is a snowsuit. They don’t like the cold here at all.

Here we are gathered around some coffee tables brought out to hold the food in front of Mwita’s hut.

These are some of Mwita’s friends that came to the supper.

A couple of neighbor kids in snow suits. It had rained and cooled down some, probably to a little under 70 degrees.

Some of the USA team members led some games for the neighborhood kids.

This is Chacha a friend of Mwita, and his two wives. Chacha used to be our night guard at the house. The ladies seemed to get along quite well with each other.

Here is Mwita’s grandfather.

This was a real treat for all of us, real African hospitality. TIA, Mark

Some Shirata Photos

One note about Shirati that Pam left out, included with the bats that were present for supper, was a very friendly cat both nights we ate. It sure was howling for fish. Got kicked out one door, and just went around and came in another door.

I’m also attaching some photos of Lake Victoria and the shoreline. They were really touchy about photos, so couldn’t really take any of the village and people.

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Ok, just to show I'm still around and Pam isn't here alone, here's a photo of us on the shores of Lake Victoria

Below is the shoreline with the boats. Upper right is the new government fish house where all the fish will be brought and weighed and given to shippers. Upper left is an island that people will go to picnic.

The village we were in where all the fish come to is named Soto. The fishermen go all the way across the lake as there are no fish just off shore. They usually come back about 11am and we were there late afternoon. These were fish just brought in. We did eat fish two nights in a row and it was really good.

They have some really nice looking birds here, roosters for one, but they have some really ugly birds also. This is one, kind of a cross between a pelican and a crane with a little buzzard mixed in.

There are sail and outboard fishing boats. We saw one sail in and only had one fish in it, my kind of fishing luck.

This photo really touches me. This is Rhobi, the girl we were taking to see the bone specialist.

She had never seen a lake before. She did wade in the water, tried to pick shells from the lapping shore waters and here she is taking a last look at the lake before we go back to town.

Thanks to you all for keeping in touch and sharing these blogs with Pam and I. TIA, Mark

Good News Bad News

Mark and I took Rhobi to Shirati on Monday morning. Checked at the hospital about the doctor coming on Tuesday and to make sure everything was a go. Got our name on the list of people to see the orthopedic surgeon. Felt pretty good about that. We were told to be at the hospital at 10:00 on Tuesday and the doctor would arrive at 11:00 to see patients. We checked into our "motel". Not much by American standards but Rhobi and Anna, the matrine, thought it was very nice. We did not have A/C, or a TV, only one outlet and not running water. There was a large bucket where you could get cold water to flush the toilet and to wash up with. The bathroom smelled terrible, made me gag to brush my teeth. While we ate supper, the bats flying around the ceiling, kept us company. The 2 inch cockroach met us at the bathroom door. Neadless to say I did not get much sleep (I am very spoiled American but needing to have this Africian experence). So on Tuesday it was back back to the hospital by 9:45(we wanted to be one of the first ones there) we saw about 250 people waiting after we checked in. I saw some of the worst club feet I'd ever seen and bowed knees and saw several people who could only move on there hands and knees. Made our little infection look minor!

The doctors plane arrived about 11:00. You couldn't miss it, it was loud! We waited and waited and waited. Someone told us the doctor likes to go to the fish market and buy fish, another told us he was having coffee upstairs. Being American I thought this was very rude of him. Finally after a 3 hour wait it was finally our turn to see the doctor who looked at our x rays and said they were of poor quality and we had to have them retaken. So we paid the $15,000 shillings to have the x ray and waited in line for them to take the x ray. About 5:00 the x rays were done and we went back to the first line to wait to see the doctor again. We waited and waited and waited. Finally at 8:00 PM the nurse announced that the doctor was going home and every one would have to come back tomorrow. I pretended I didn't understand what he said, and I said , "No Swahili what did you say?" The doctor said come in we'll see you now! After 10 hours of waiting finally we see t he doctor who says, "what have you tried to get rid of this infection?" I told him, amoxicillin, Ceflasporin and Ciprofloxin and he prescribed another antibiotic and sent us home. I had not heard of this anitbiotic but the doctor said it was good against penicillin resistant staff infections. I am hoping that this does in fact work better than the other 3 I tried already. I want to thank everyone for thier prayers and well wished. We came prepared to spend a week and only stayed 2 nights. I am so thankful for the games, coloring book, sweat shirt, candy, crafts and other things people sent to me to keep Rhobi warm and busy. We waited 10 hours and every game and toy helped. So the good news is no surgery, the bad news is we spent a lot of time and money.
Wishing you all a Christ filled Christmas and to know the love of Jesus,
This Is Africa, Pam

We had a very disappointing day today. After months of work to get VISAs for Anna, the director of Angel House, and Lucy, a student they were dennied VISAs. A lot of money has gone into sending them to the US. $400 each air fare to Daresalem,the capital, plus hotel, bus fare and meals for 3 days. Things have been in the works for Anna to accompany Dr. Lisa home and for Lucy to attend an American school for a couple of months. People on both the American and Tanzanian side are frustrated and disappointed. They had every piece of paper needed. Lucy had a letter from the school, physical, reason for going and the reasons for comming back. Anna just got married, has 3 children, a home, a great job and owns land here. There would be no reason for her to want to stay in America yet they were turned down. The other bad thing is that you can only apply for a VISA three times in your lifetime and they can turn you down three times.
So sad day here but the Lord is good all the time.
Blessings, TIA Pam

I finished my sample purse for “The Perfect Purse Project” we hope to be able to sell some of them either here in Tarime, Nairobi or back in Iowa at craft fairs. I’ve put in a photo of the front and back. There are two different fabrics used that coordinate with each other a pocket on the outside and several pockets on the inside. I noticed the price on the internet for the same purse is $35.00. I hope we can sell some and make a little money. I fugure it takes about 6 dollars to make a purse so I am hoping to sell them for 12-15 so with every purse sold they can buy material for 2 more purses.

Now let’s take a look at some of the landscape I see every day that reminds me of something out of “‘Horton Hears a Who”

This one looks like a Yucka plant with a huge stock.

This one is a tree and all the leaves fall off and then this "flower" appears on the end of the dead branches. Weird!

This one reminds me of pompoms on a stem.

This flower reminds me of a trumpet. It blooms about once a month but the blooms only last a day or two.

In Nairobi I found this bush near a bank. I love the different colors of flowers on the same bush. It was beautiful and I think blooms all the time.

I call these golf balls on a stick.

More golf balls on a stick up close. They have one layers of orange petals and reminds me of a cartoon type space ship. Behind is an oven that bakes bricks.

I know I saw this in "Horton Hears a Who".

Thanks to friends we now have 7 more new desks at the school. Things are really getting busy for Liz, Eric and Holly as preparations are made to open the new high school. We have a head master and a second head master. The next step for them is hiring teachers and we have had lots of interest in those positions. It will hard, I’m sure, to make the dicisions of who to hire there are so many qualified teachers.

Monday was a landmark day here at Angel House. We had 10 boys circumsised. Ages from 5-12. As you know there is a language barrier here and we use a lot of pantomime so use your imagination and pantomime circumcision. This is a big deal for them and it binds the boys together as they have all gone threw the same procedure. Liz and Eric bought meat for a celebration and Mark and I are going to buy soda for the circumcision celebration. Instead of wearing pants for a week they wear kongas, a piece of colorful cloth wrapped around the waiste. (Now they know what it is like to wear a skirt!)

While I was helping the boys in the surgery area, I was talking to the doctor he told me that when this procedure is done in the villages they many die because all they do is cut off the extra skin and don’t tie off the bleeders or put the remaining skin back together with suture. They often bleed to death or get nasty infections as they use the same knife on every one. (I would want to be the first one in line!) Not to mention no anesthia is used. So far are boys must be real men because all of them are healing nicely. So yoy can say “You Da Man” and really mean it because when your are circumsiced you also become a man and so if you have been sleeping on a mat you get a real bed with a matress. The village of Gamasara has been playing music and yelling a lot in preparation for their circumcision celebration. I understand the celebration goes on for days and they fly flags around the house to let everyone know about the circumcision.

Now as I am taking down the Thanksgiving decorations, it is time to put up
Christmas decorations. I know a lot of friends and family put Christmas up the weekend after Thanksgiving so we are late. The plan is to pool our money together and buy the one and only Christmas tree (that I know of), in Tarime, it’s about 2 and half feet tall, sort of a Charlie Brown looking tree, but a tree is a tree I don’t care how it looks. It has also been suggested that we buy a living banana tree and decorate it. Then I plan on down loading some Christmas music and hopefully it will seem more like the Advent Season. Liz’s father, a Methodist minister, sent us Advet Devotions for every day in Advent. I almost wish there was snow on the ground. (just kidding) Christmas Cards will not get to you in time so I want to wish all of you a blessed Advent Season and a Joyous Christ Centered Christmas Day. We are certainly blessed with wonderful and supportive family and friends.

Blessing,

Pam and Mark

Tarime Thanksgiving Time

Well Thanksgiving is almost here. We are having the staff of Angel House out to lunch on Thursday. We are having African food with an American celebration. We will be hiring someone to take care of “The Littles” ages 18 months to 5 years, the rest of the kids will be in school. It will be nice to have everyone together at the same time. That doesn’t usually happen because someone always has to stay back and take care of our little kids who can get into a lot mischief. Did I tell you that the 2 three year olds got into the charcoal one day? Eric said, “I didn’t think black kids could get any blacker but they can.” Then they got into raw eggs and broke 6 of them. Yesterday they were adding water to dirt and making mud pies not only that but one of the boys decided there wasn’t enough water in the mud so he peed in the puddle. That ended the pie making! I scolded him in English and set him in time out. I have no idea what he understood, but he knew I was mad!

My daughter sent me “Thanksgiving in a Box” that arrived on Thursday. She had put in some of the truditional foods, green bean casserole fixin’s, a can of pumpkin, a couple cans of turkey (white and dark meat) a box of stuffing and decorations so I am anxious to fix that all up. I think I will make gravey and put the turkey in gravey and serve it over mashed potatoes and stuffing with green beans on the side. She also sent Thanksgiving napkins. How thoughtful! Thank you Deanne! The only problem is we do not have an oven or microwave. We do however have a toaster oven and hot plate with 2 burners so as long as we have electricity we’ll have Thanksgiving! We are thinking about buying a generator because the electricity goes off so often.

Speaking of getting boxes, Dr. Lisa, one of our main sponsors sent over 33 boxes. She is coming between Christmas and New Years with a team of 22 and will be building a playground for one thing. While Dr. Lisa is here she will be doing dental check ups on all the kids, staff, and we hope to invite the people of Gamasara Village to have dental check ups too. So, anyway, she sent over supplies and other goodies. We have been going to the post office every day to look for the packages. Thursday the post master finally told us that the packages were all in Musoma about an hour and 45 minutes away and they could only send up to 5 packages a week to Tarime where we live. It just so happened that Liz and Eric, and Holly were in Musoma and able to pick up all the packages. There were so many that the back end of the truck was full. It was like Christmas only Supersized!

This week I have been working with Lucy on getting things done that she needs to come to America. Mick, one of our visitors a few weeks back, who used to be an airline pilot, has made the arrangements on the American side. Lucy will be attending a private Catholic School in Connecticut where they have English as a second language and that teacher speaks Swahili! How perfect is that? Lucy and I went to the government hospital to have an AIDS test, a TB test and a physical. The paperwork from the school wanted her height in feet so they asked Lucy to take off her shoe and they measured her foot. I had worked with a doctor who spoke good english once before at the government hospital his nickname was Dr. Pepsi, (I’m guessing he drinks a lot of Pepsi?) I asked to see him again for the physical and the receptionist walked me across the street (the government hospital is made up of a lot of buildings so I was not suprised that we had to cross the street) to a small shop and she apologized that they only had Coke. We all got a good laugh out of that. Lucy is now about ready and she is so excited! I believe Mick is meeting her in Nairobe and Lucy will be living with him and his wife while in America. We are all excited for her too. Mick and his wife are so generous to do this for Lucy. I can’t wait to hear the stories she comes back with. She leaves on December 1. So prayers for a safe and uneventful travel would be appriciated.

Holly and Liz have now hired a Head Master and a Second Head Master and today they are doing interviews for teachers. I think we really ARE going to open in January. That will be a very happy day for our high school who have had to walk 90 minutes to school every day. Now it will be a 2 minute walk across the front yard:-)

I have taken pictures of some of the plants and flowers they have here but this blog is getting too long to add that so maybe next time. Believe me we have some Dr. Susse types plants around here. Now I know where he got some of his ideas for the pictures in “Horton Hears a Who”.

Happy Thanksgiving, think of me eating rice and beans.

Blessings and TIA, Pam

Lucy at Form 7 graduation

Nairobi Follow Up

Just a quick note on our Nairobi vacation and some more photos: You’ll notice the picture of the police with a machine gun, quite common both in Nairobi and Tarime. Like Pam says, “ You don’t want to upset someone holding a gun,” so that’s why you see I took the photo from behind.

Here’s a photo of the Masaii greeters at the crocodile farm, man could the one on the left effortlessly jump high!

Here’s a photo to give you an idea of what the traffic is like, and it really doesn’t do justice to all the cars and people. I had more than one taxi driver have me roll up my window when I had my camera out as the walkers would appear to be just crossing the street and snatch your camera through the open window.

Here’s the BBQ pit at the Carnivore restaurant we treated ourselves to. They had cuts of; beef, crocodile (yes we tried it), BBQ chicken, chicken wings, ox heart (passed), chicken liver (passed), spare ribs, lamb and ox bone (passed). They go to table to table with the various meats and you have a small flag on your table that you lay down when you surrender (can’t eat anymore).

Lastly here, according to our driver, is the second largest slum in the world, with over 1 million people.

The slum was a reminder to us about the needs here in Africa. TIA Mark

Nairobi Trip

While in Nairobi we were able to do some tourist stuff. We visited the Elephant Orphanage. The workers there talked about each elephant (18 of them) and how it became an orphan. Most were due to poachers killing the mother for the ivory. The baby can not survive without the mothers milk. Often the baby is found standing next to the dead mother. One baby had scars where there were spears. They weren’t so sure he would live but he did. Probably the second cause of orphaned elephants is that they fall into abandon wells and can’t get out. The mother stays by the well for a while but eventually gives up and leaves the baby abandoned. Often times they can find the mother and reunite the mother and baby, but if not the baby comes to the orphanage. There is teaching going on to encourage the nomads to cover wells when they leave an area to prevent this from happening. The average stay is about 5 years then they are reintroduced back into the wild. They also had two white rhinos one because he had poor eye site and wouldn’t be able to survive on it’s own. The other rhino was out in the fenced in area learning how to live in the jungle again. I believe his mother died of natural causes. White rhinos are endangered as well.

The giraffe Center was next on the list and it started because one species of giraffe, Rothschild, was near extinction. We were able to feed and touch the giraffes. It was pretty cool! Did you know the giraffe saliva is antiseptic? Did you know that a giraffe can have a stroke if bending it’s head down. The giraffe has very high blood pressure and putting it’s head down causes a lot of pressure in the brain and the can have stokes. The other thing I learned is that the sleep standing up 5-30 minutes is all they sleep. And I think I’m tired after 8 hours of sleep

There were warthogs there too:-)

Lastly we visited the crocodiles. I would not want to come face to face with one of those. Even the little ones scare me! The crocks were split into age groups. When they loose a tooth another grows in its place. So don’t expect an old crock to gum you to death.

Masai (Nomad people) greeted us as we went into see the crock

Along with the crocs were turtles

On another day we visited the Nairobi National Museum. The best part for me was an art exhibit with the artist there to talk with and buy the art their work (if you had a lot of money). The artist we liked best was deaf but we gave him thumbs up on his paintings, they were very whimsical pictures of the African animals.

We got back from Nairobi Saturday, Nov. 6 in the evening around 6:00. Our bus was late because of an accident. There is a cement barrier between the lanes of traffic about 3-4 ft. high and a semi jack knifed and was on top of the cement barrier blocking both lanes of traffic on both sides of the highway. Our bus had to drive off the road and around the semi. It was more like a parking lot than a highway. While we were in Nairobi there was an election of the president and other officials in Tanzania. I guess some people got a little rowdy during the announcements of winners and losers. It’s announced by speaker near the town center. At one point tear gas had to be shot into the crowd. Glad we missed that. This did not happen in our part of town. Think VISHA on one side of Ames and living near the mall.

Also while we were gone, in preparation for the circumcisions the witch doctor at Gamasara said no one could work on Saturday or they would die. So none of our workers came to work on the school Saturday. No one died, even the people who worked in the garden or those who fetched water.

Sunday afternoon, the choir from Angel House did a performance for the people of Gamasara and Tarime. They had made a CD about a month ago and were releasing it Sunday. It is custom here to hand deliver invitations to the concert. We invited around 200 people. They also invite a person called “The Honorable” who is usually an important person that sits at a table with other important people. During one part of the program The Honorable and others sitting at the front table make speeches and they gave money to the orphanage. So that was pretty great. I hear we collected over $1000 American. We charged to get in and also sold the CDs. One song was so moving that some people were crying and so were the kids doing the performance. The song was about why does there have to be orphans and stress and disrespect in the world. I Wish everyone could have seen the kids, they were great! I was a proud Bibi. This was all made possible because at some time in the past someone that visited Angle House went back to the states and raised money to help the choir. What a great gift that turned into! I sent a copy of the CD to our church and one to my family.

Below is a picture of the Honorable District Commissioner.

Our House in Tarime

The court yard is where we would park a car if we had one. It has 2 big metal doors that swing open to allow the car inside. Within those big doors is a small door way for walking in or we use it to bring the motorcycle in at the end of the day. Notice the clothes line and the buckets. The buckets are used to hold rain water which is much cleaner that the dirty rusty water that comes from the pipes in the house. There is a water tank that does not work but is supposed to save water for when there is not water available. We live on the right side where the door is open and Liz, Eric, and Holly live on the left side.

The kitchen is on the left side of the house and you can’t see a stove, microwave or nice double sink with a disposal, because there isn’t one. Just a tiny refrigerator and a few shelves. The large silver pot on the left is a water purifier.

Because the kitchen is so small we store the food in the pantry area. Note the eggs. Did you know eggs don’t need to be refrigerated?

This is the living room on the left side of the house. Notice how nice the curtains look. (I did the sewing). Look up at the ceiling and notice the fan. That’s all we need here because the weather is always between 60-85. The fan rotates in a circle. You can not see it but there is another chair that matches the 2 love seats. The love seats and the chair are not real comfortable but it beats sitting on a tree stump.

The main dinning area seats about 6 but most of us eat in the living room, just like home. In the front left you can see a small sink. Yes there is a sink in the dinning room used to wash hands before you eat.

There are 2 bedrooms, a small room for storage (we don’t have a basement) on the left side of the house and one bathroom. Note the new hot water heater. The water is heated on a coil on the inside of the shower head. There is no shower stall you just get everything wet that’s in the bathroom when you shower. Notice the spigot on the left side down low. When there is not enough water pressure to get water out of the shower you can get it out of the spigot. It is not very clean as you can see. I could not show you the bedrooms because they were locked.

Now for our side of the house. Just inside the front door is our storage room. Yes we are messy. The sun oven is on the floor on the left, it is wood and black. Let me also point out the toilet tissue on the left. You can only get big bundles of it and it is not very nice. It practically disintegrates before it reaches the water. TMI? There is also a big box of sweaters that were a home knitting project. We give them to the hospitals to give to the new borns. They actually will fit the kids until they are about 2 years old because of how they are made. One of the three year old boys at the orphanage was wearing one the other day. I have also seen them used for a hat. Although they look funny with the sleeves hanging out on each side of the head. Think of Norsemen. If they had horns the sweater would fit just fine.

This bathroom has what is called a choo (a hole in the floor) rhymes with “low”. Not exactly my style but the guys seem to like it a lot. No one uses the shower in this bathroom so it only has cold water the heater that is on the shower head does not work.

The dinning room on our side does not get used either. We just had guests from the US bring us 2 trunks full of stuff. One is in the process of being emptied the other is in the process of being sorted and sized. This room also doubles as a bedroom when we have volunteers from the states that only stay a week or two.

We have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms on our side. This is the spare bedroom. Note the shelf on the right is one that Mark made it is now at the kids house in their storage room.

Our side, the right side, has a living room with 2 love seats and a chair. Mark has made his love seat into a “recliner”. The door you see goes out to a patio and there is a place to cook and a water spigot on the patio but we do all the cooking on the left side. I’m thinking I might like to have some lawn chairs so sit out on the patio. It’s covered so you could even sit out in the rain and not get wet. Note the nice curtains with the lace trim. I made those, can you believe it? Near the ceiling on the left there is a bare bulb, that’s how they do it here. No light fixtures just a bare bulb.

This is our bedroom with the sewing machine on the table on the right. The fabric you see on the bed is called a konga and can be used for just about anything. I see it used as rain gear, to hold a baby on your back, to wrap around like a shall to keep you warm, to wrap around your waist and use the ends for pot holders and a towel while cooking, and to wrap around when walking threw the house to the shower. There is a book title I saw called 101 ways to use a konga. Yes I had my hand in those curtains too.

The smallest bedroom Mark made into a shop area. He brought over a lot of tools

and needed a place to organize them. He’s been using a lot of what he brought. They are very impressed with his power tools. They saw by hand and then plane the wood. A lot of work.

We are pretty proud of our bathroom it is the only bathroom with a mirror. Mark made the mirror frame by hand because his power tools did not work (he blew up the chargers and had to send for new ones). We have a heater on our shower head but it was just put in. Until last week we took cold showers. On the bottom left we have an almost normal toilet. It’s bliss :-)

Next are several pictures of things that are crooked. Now if you know me very well you probably know I can’t stand crooked things! I’m sorta obsessive compulsive that way. If you look at the bedroom window you can notice the angle of the bars on the bottom of the two outside sections do not match

Next are the floor tiles, the wall is not straight.

The doorway to the outside kitchen is, as you can see, crooked. I’m not sure they know what a level is or how to use it. Seems everything is done by eyeballing it. (I’m not sure they were sober when they eyeballed it)

I’m throwing in a few other pictures as well. I caught this yellow moth sleeping one morning on the window.

Then there are the two dogs at the house one is the size of a terrier the other is the size of a min pin or a chiuaua. The bigger one is Clifford and the little one is Blackie. I had nothing to do with the names.