Myhomea Village
This last Sunday I was invited to Baba Kashdae village of Mihoma. He is the local artist that I have been working with for the last month developing my previously non existent artist skills. He is a wonderful man in his 50’s that splits his time between Moshi and Mihoma. The paintings in the picture below are just some of his work. He paints amazing picture of animals even though he has never been on safari to see any of these animals in real life. Jess, David and I went with him to visit his village. It is a wonderful place with quite roads beautiful scenery. We took a taxi up a rough dirt road about 45 min into the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. He took us to his home, showed us his coffee and banana farm behind his house. We then drank home grown tea and coffee then ate a huge meal of green banana stews, rice and fruits. Then we walked up through the village along the main road. Along the way we discovered that the whole village was attending a send off party.
Send off parties are a huge deal here. It is the party for a woman getting married. The actual wedding is much more of a party for the husband’s family. Often times the wife’s family does not even attend the wedding. So as we walked we passed many people dressed in suits and formal outfits similar to what people in the states would wear to weddings. They walked along the muddy road enjoying the whole event.
We walked about an hour to the highest point of the village watching kibo peak of Kili the entire way. When we reached the top we had a beautiful view of a two tier waterfall. After we returned to his home he treated us to Banana beer. It is awful stuff that is made from grains and bananas that requires a bit of chewing before swallowing. After we each drank our ration we were put in a taxi to return to Moshi. As we came down off the mountain we had a beautiful view over Moshi and the surrounding plains and watched the sunset behind Mt. Meru.
Then on Mon and Tue I had the pleasure of traveling to Rhombo region with two fellow volunteers Joelle and Elizabeth. Both of them have great Swahili which turned out to be invaluable. Joellel has been working in a hospital in Horombo for a long time and this time she invited us to join her. We took a full size bus on a very rutty muddy road about 2 hours to the village. While at the hospital we visited many different wards. We played cards and painted finger and toe nails with the new mothers and the soon to be mothers. We also gave out stickers and played in the children’s ward which reminded me of the movie Patch Adams. After a break for dinner and a card game at the hostel, Joelle and I returned to the labor ward and witnessed the birth of a baby. The whole event is much different than in the states. There was no anesthetic, no family, no privacy, no counting and most importantly no whining. Typically there is power however that night the power went out and kerosene lamps were lit after 15 minutes of standing in the dark when it was confirmed that the power was not coming on anytime soon. The actual birth went very quickly, it was the mother’s 6th child. Pregnancy and child birth here is just a way of life no hype just something that happens and must be dealt with.
On Tue we returned to the clinic and sat in on a lecture on Pediatric TB. Elizabeth and I then assisted at the HIV CDC clinic. This is where HIV positive patients with a CD4 count below 250 are given drugs to improve and maintain their health. We took vital signs and filled out paper work for the patients as they arrived. We were then invited to sit in with the pediatric doctor as he interviewed and prescribed meds for the patients. The entire visit, including meds is free to the patients thanks to grants and funds many of which are from the US. However the cost of the transport to the hospital is significant to the families and many walk several hours to receive their treatment.
I often feel as though I am not doing enough work here. I crave the idea of making a lasting impact in this community however I don’t feel that I accomplished that yet. I can not help but feel blessed to be here; the land, the people and the culture is beautiful here. I have all of my needs accounted for and have great people around to share my experience with.
