Muggings, drugs, detentions, parties & poi...

Oh boy, oh boy, what a month! Mid-month we had a major change of routine as the children returned to school after a holiday of about five weeks duration. There was a mad rush of covering exercise books the Friday prior, and suddenly the children were bringing me their school backpacks: “Aunty, Aunty, my bag is broken.” All you mothers out there, imagine the return-to-school chaos with 24 children! The treadle sewing machine certainly got a workout, as did my hand sewing skills. On one particularly tough leather hand-stitching job I acquired several thumb punctures from the eye end of the needle – ouch!

Doing things by hand is the norm here. As I’ve said to Ian, I’ll probably come home from Tanzania & stand mesmerized in front of appliances such as the washing machine, saying “Look... it goes around... and around... and the clothes come out clean... amazing!” A bit like Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh who, upon being given a burst balloon & an empty honey pot for his birthday, then spent hours repeatedly putting the balloon into the pot & then out again, saying “It goes in and out like anything,” as happy as could be.

I broke a small boy’s heart one day. One poor little lad had only just woken from his afternoon nap & was still quite bleary when I began my regular first aid session. He had a small partly-healed wound on his forehead which needed a little Savlon, but no plaster. Oh my goodness, he was devastated. He stood in the office doorway, tears streaming down his little face as he just cried and cried “Plaster, plaster” over & over. Even a good cuddle failed to stem his tears.

On 20th July life here took a more serious turn for us all, with two of our female volunteers being mugged as they walked to Kili Kids in the broad daylight of late morning. The first thing either of them knew of their attackers was when one of them was on the ground unconscious from being struck across the head with a lump of wood. After a trip to the police station (which the police insisted on BEFORE hospital), then a medical clinic, we had to take our injured girl to KCMC (Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre) for an emergency CT scan to rule out a brain haemorrhage, as she had blood draining from her ear. Most scary!

Fortunately her CT was clear, but she had to stay in hospital overnight for observation. We sent her friend home for some TLC of her own, as she’d spent all day being “the strong one” for her friend despite being very emotionally traumatised herself, and I stayed in the hospital overnight. I’ve kept folks company overnight in Aussie hospitals and know it’s never a good night’s sleep, but this was an eye-opener. Its BYO food in hospital here (so you’d better hope someone loves you) and blankets seem to be a bit of a BYO commodity too.

We were extremely fortunate to be in a four-bed room with only one other patient for most of the night; a bibi mzee (very old grandmother) who appeared to have just had a right trans-femoral (above-knee) amputation. She was obviously in considerable pain, & regularly keened quietly.  The other rooms were very over-crowded & the corridor was lined on both sides with beds, mostly of the low-slung camping style, literally top-to-toe. It was almost like a scene out of a war or natural-disaster zone hospital.

Extra room companions came & went. For most of the night there was a man in a nearby room snoring so loudly he sounded like a passable rendition of the ENTIRE Serengeti Hippo Pool. And as a sweet counter-point, somewhere close by a woman was singing softly. In the early hours the singing was replaced by the sound of vomiting. “Ow, ow, ow...” keened Bibi over & over in a lament universally recognizable as the song of pain. And I pondered whether Hippo Man was several rooms away or was, in fact, on the level below us.

Post-discharge the following afternoon I drove our girls home – a much better place to recuperate. Despite having been so injured, she expressed her desire to stay in Tanz. A wonderful, wonderful friend of Kili Kids, the American Dr. Greg, checked our girl every day, and finally recommended she return to her home country, as the damage to her hearing was not resolving. It was a very sad end to her very foreshortened visit; she flew out a few nights ago.

There have also been various scandalous relationship happenings amongst the wazungu population of Moshi. Drunken sexual behaviour, relationship infidelities... lately I’ve felt a little like I’m living in a soapie. Lots of small-town gossip.

Last Sunday I finally went with a few others on an out-of-town excursion to the village of one of our hostel Masai guards. We rode in a mini-bus (not as small as the dalla-dallas), then walked for maybe 20mins or so through the maize fields to the boma. We spent a while sitting & playing with the children, as the adults were still in church. I became a hero to one small girl when I removed a splinter from her thumb, and she henceforth attached herself to me like a little limpet.

 

We were shown inside a couple of the village dwellings; some were round huts, but others looked like Western houses. No electricity or running water of course. We then all walked further through the maize to a small clearing beneath a tree, where the young men did their jumping-dancing-singing for absolutely ages. Eventually the wazungu were cajoled into joining in. Finally we returned to the dwellings, and sat outside for a cup of hot, sweet Masai tea. It was a dusty but very enjoyable day.

Does this photo look like I’m cutting white powder (with a credit card) at the orphanage? Yes, it looks highly suspicious, and yes, it’s exactly what it looks like! Rest easy, I haven’t gone off the rails. One of our kids required a medication in a 20mg dose. Unfortunately it can only be sourced here in a 30mg capsule form, so I was given a little lesson by the pharmacist on how to dismantle the capsules, reduce the dosage by a third, and reassemble. Crude at best, but we have to work with what we’ve got. I guess it’ll look good on my resume (LOL).

In a typical “nothing according to plan” kind of day, I spent several hours yesterday afternoon at the Immigration offices with a friend who’d been “arrested” for volunteering without having obtained a residence permit. It was a very protracted affair, with the locals doing lots of arguing, and repeated interviews of my friend interspersed with much waiting around. Eventually everyone was released an hour after the offices closed, with my friend having signed a statement & paid the expected fine. It’s a quick, although expensive way to get a residence permit. On Monday he’ll receive the same permit I’ve been waiting almost two months to have processed!

It was lovely to head back to Hoff after all that, knowing I had a good BBQ feast to look forward to. We had a “J” themed combined farewell / 21st birthday party. The costumes were quite varied.

Jewellery-wearer, Jacobite, Jillaroo & Jew

The birthday boy dressed as a Jack-in-a-box & his sister as a Jigsaw puzzle. There were Jack & Jill (as in, went up the hill), a couple of Jews, Jesus, a Jacobite, jewellery-wearer, jitterbug, joker, jester, junkie, just-dead, jellybean, and many others. I went as a Jillaroo, which I had to spend all evening explaining to the non-Aussies.

For some unknown reason our cook found the sight of me in my Jillaroo costume hysterically funny – I think it was mostly the hat. She kept calling me a policeman, and standing to attention at the sight of me before bursting forth in fits of giggles.  The evening was rounded out with performances of poi (fire-twirling) from a couple of our Hoffers – very spectacular. I might have to take lessons...