No Scissors For You!

The other day, one of our housemates Amy came back from placement and told us that one of her kids had fallen off the swings and split his head open. After much prodding from Amy one of the other teachers took him to the  hospital. (Until that point, the teacher had just been blotting the child's head with a cloth.) The school could not afford a taxi, so the boy and teacher set off walking to the hospital. Mind you, it's about a half mile just from the school building to the compound's entrance. Thankfully, the boy and teacher returned to school while Amy was still there and the boy's head was successfully stitched up. The good news in this Amy informed us as the teacher had informed her was that the boy did not need scissors. At this point, we all looked at Amy like she was nuts until she told us scissors=surgery. Thankfully, I haven't had any blood at my placement. I think it helps that we have no outdoor space which really is a shame for the children but has limited injuries.

Every day we are reminded of the differences between education systems in Tanzania and Education in the United States. And yet, even with the limited resources, most schools and orphanages here do more with their few resources than schools in America do.

Yesterday we did a day hike on Kilimanjaro, tomorrow we'll all be dying at placement. Kilimanjaro is incredible, every day I am amazed by the beauty of Tanzania. The hike was not at all like our we thought it would be, our surroundings looked like a rain forest and we were in the shade for almost the whole climb. There are different levels of vegetation, the first they call the rain forest, second is the heather forest and the third reminded me of Arizona with cactus looking plants and craters. (I don't remember what the third level was called.) Even as we got closer to Camp Marangu, our day hike destination, we were still mostly covered by shade. We ate lunch at the campground and then walked around the Maundi Crater. It's beautiful and at certain points you can see cities in Kenya.

Every once and a while on the climb we would cross porters who were running down the hill with huge loads on their heads and water barrels in their arms. It still amazes me that everyone can carry such large things on their heads, most do not even hold them. Even the children walk around with baskets on their heads.
If you are doing the full hike and staying at a camp ground, you need water barrels because the water point is about 30 minutes from each campsite.

On the way down, I pretended I was a porter (minus the luggage) and ran down a lot of it. Even without carrying anything, it is no easy task. You constantly have to be looking up and down, up so you don't crash into anyone or anything and down so you don't trip. There are ruts and stones everywhere and it's hard to get into a grove. Once you do it is very rewarding but there is a lot of bracing yourself...the porters put me to shame, they make it look so easy!

We had the perfect day for climbing, clear blue skies dotted with just the right amount of clouds. We had no rain our entire hike and it only started raining when we were leaving which was perfect because it cooled us down before our hour ride back to Moshi.

When we returned to Karanga, our CCS house, we had 2 new housemates, Christiane and Kelcey. Everyone was very sad to say goodbye to our housemate Sara who left last night but the new additions were very friendly. This morning at breakfast we met the other 4 housemates and everyone clicked. It's going to be a little hectic with over 20 bodies in the same house but it's a wonderful group of people.

Siku njema na Nawapenda (Good day, love you all!)