End of the month payroll...Tanzanian style

(our view of the crater slope from the RVCV)

Ok, so the end of the month is pay day. They don't pay weekly, bi-monthly or anything else, just the last day of the month. However today is the 30th (technically not the last day of March) and it is payday! Surprise! :) All of the housemothers, housekeepers, teachers, maintenance staff and security staff are paid in cash. It is the Tanzanian way, no one has checking accounts. The smallest denomination(that I have used so far) is a 20 shilling coin, which is equal to about .04 cents, the largest bill I have is TSH 10,000. I have spent the entire morning counting out the cash and putting it together for each person. When you are dealing with thousands of shillings per person and the majority of bills I have are 500 and 1000 TSH notes, it can get pretty crazy.

Everyone then lines up out the door, I look them up in the book, we both sign the individual sheet for that person, then they very slowly count out the money to make sure my calculations are correct we say "Asante" a thousand times, then the next person comes in...boy do I miss that automatic payroll! :)

Everyone is so gracious and they dont mind waiting at all. Most of all, they are thankful to be employed. It makes me feel so great that we are helping in our own little way.

Our children and surroundings cont....

Vitamins given to each school child every day

We have taken over the management of the local school Gyetighi and have instituted a free school lunch program for all children. Before the lunch program the attendance was around 30% and now it is about 95% every day. For some children this is the ONLY meal they receive each day. We also give them vitamins everyday.

Our walk to school is fun each day, the kids are always excited to go to school and can't wait to get up each morning. It is fun to see kids that are so excited about learning.

Our surroundings

Here are a few pictures of our buildings. We are on the slopes of the Ngorongoro crater, however the 7 acres we are on have been cleared and leveled for the houses and buildings. It also helps keep the elephants and Cape buffalo out due to the lack of vegetation…which is a really good thing! I was sitting on the porch last night and a little Dik Dik just came up to the edge of the porch. It is spectacular the amount of wildlife that is just roaming around the property. A lot of the children want to go to college or the University as they call it to become conservationists in the National parks.

Mama's cooking on thier Jikos outside on the porch.

Campi Nairobi - coffee pickers village right outside of our gate

Ringworm and Funzis

Funzi update: 0
Ringworm update: 0
(picture is of Mica, Vincente, Gabriella and Neehma on a walk we took last week)

OK, so I know what ringworm is...what I didn't know was how prevalent it is here at the Children's Village. It turns out this is the reason all of the children's heads are shaved, so we can keep track of when the kids have it and when they need medicine etc.. There is such an epidemic of it that I also want to have stock in the anti-fungal cream used here. All of the toddlers have it, all over their heads and little bodies. So far I haven't contracted it, however they run up and hug me and sit on top of me and basically just rub all over me...so i figure it is just a matter of time. I just wish there was some other name for it, Ringworm sounds so gross, I have visions of a worm circling around in a ring on my arm, but know that is just my latest fantasy :)

Now, Funzi's are another story. These are little worms that get into your feet through the dirt. Now it is bad enough that they are inside of your body, but then I come to find out they lay their eggs and it gets really infected and gruesome. The prevention is to scrub your feet really well and luckily I have brought a hard core scrub brush, otherwise I would have had one for sure by now.

Baby Emmanuelle and Malaria

I cannot believe I have been here three weeks! This past week I have been taking care of our fussy baby Emmanuelle. He is absolutely adorable and has horrible colic. I offered to try and get him on a schedule and give the mama’s a break. It has been so much fun, but also I seem to be in a constant state of sleep deprivation. Wednesday I was asked to rush Emmanuelle to the medical clinic in Karatu because he had been throwing up all night. I use the term “rush” very loosely as we have to drive for 45 minutes over a dirt road with ruts as huge as cows in them. Along the way we stop and pickup every person we see who is heading in the general direction we are…which is great, but in a life or death situation, not an ideal scenario!
It turns out that the baby has Malaria! He is only 3 months old and a vast majority of the babies die here of Malaria as they can get dehydrated within a very, very short time. So we headed home, packed up all of his baby clothes, formula, diapers etc… and moved him into my room for three days. The first night was really fun, he woke up every 15 minutes and either screamed or puked and if I was really lucky, he did both! It is a wonderful thing he is so cute because it is really hard on the old body. I now know why women are only supposed to have babies in their 20’s or 30’s because we are way to old in our 40’s to do the whole no sleep thing!

After three days of medicine he has drastically improved, very little fever, the puking has stopped and very little diarrhea...now we just have the plain ole colic again! I didn’t realize how nervous I really was until he was better. I have taken him back to stay with the mama’s and look forward to an excellent night of sleep, however I have a feeling that I will really miss having him so close to me….such is the life in Tanzania.

Tanzanian Children's Fund

After many years of raising children and living the life of a workaholic in the corporate world, I have chosen to give back to others and focus on someone other than myself and try and help those less fortunate than myself. I feel very blessed that I have come across such a wonderful organization as the Tanzanian Children’s Fund. http://www.tanzanianchildrensfund.org/ The following blog posts will keep track of my journey at the Rift Valley Children’s Village.

The Rift Valley Children’s Village (“Children’s Village”) is an orphanage located in Oldeani Village, Tanzania, which is adjacent to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the Rift Valley of Tanzania. The Children’s Village provides a home, family and community for orphaned and vulnerable children. We prepare them to become informed, resourceful and responsible citizens in their community and Tanzania. As of January, 2009, the Children's Village is home for 55 orphaned and abandoned children.

In 2004 the people of Oldeani Village donated seven acres of land to the Rift Valley Children’s Fund to build the Children’s Village. We began construction of the Children's Village in 2005 and have completed 14 buildings (5 houses for children, staff housing, volunteer housing, an office and infirmary, library/pre-school, and recreation hall/community center). We completed construction of our last 2 Children's Houses in December 2008. By June 2009 we will be able to provide a home for 67 orphaned children.

The size of the Children’s Village has been limited to ensure that a sense of community and family can be created and maintained. There are 5 Children’s Houses. Each Children’s House is a family of 12 children, 2 Tanzanian housemothers, and 2 volunteers. In addition, 7 children will continue to live in the home of our Executive Director, India Howell. Our housemothers are women from the villages of Karatu District, whose own children are grown. Our volunteers have come from the U.S., Australia, U.K., and the Netherlands. We have hosted more than 200 volunteers since we opened our doors in January of 2004.

Many of our children have been orphaned because their parents have died from AIDS/HIV. Village leaders and church leaders inform the Children’s Village Director about unwanted or at-risk orphaned children in the area. After careful research by our social workers these children either come to join a family at the Children's Village or join our KLR Program (Kids Living with Relatives). When children first arrive at the Children’s Village, they are suffering from malnutrition, weakened immune systems, various infections, and broken hearts. With proper medical care, a balanced diet, and a loving environment, these children soon become healthy and radiant.

Aside from our Director, India Howell, all our staff at the Children’s Village are Tanzanian. Three of our senior staff-- our Managing Director and our 2 social workers-- are college educated. Our staff lives at the Children’s Village with our children. We believe this will enable our children to grow up with an understanding of their local and tribal traditions. The children and staff at the Children’s Village feel they are a part of a large family where there are tasks to be accomplished— purchasing supplies, making dinner, repairing vehicles, doing laundry, or tutoring children. However, there’s always free time for playing soccer and reading books together and of course, there are birthday parties, tummy aches, and ear infections to attend to. Everyone at the Children’s Village is included, appreciated, valued and loved.

A Day in the life at the Rift Valley Children's Village

Gabriella performing the Elephant Dance

My typical day begins waking up at 5:30 to 5:45, getting dressed and then making my way to the Serengeti house in the dark to make breakfast. Breakfast consists of either Ugi which is a porridge type dish or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a cup of milk (made from powdered milk) I alternate days with another volunteer, usually if you handle breakfast you dont do bathtime, however this is very fluid as I have found out lately. I wake the kids up and then start preparing breakfast. This gives the Mamas a chance to “sleep in”. All of the kids who go to school have to wear uniforms, so dressing in the morning is easy, getting them out of bed is quite another story. The boys are in one room and the girls in another and they each have their own bathroom. I have decided I need to have stock in a product called “Baby care” which is a Vaseline type substance they slather on their skin everyday to protect it from cracking. We go through cases of it! Everyone has to sit at the table and say prayer before they can eat. While they are eating I read off who has the morning chores from the schedule on the wall. Each child has a daily chore and they all do them without complaining, which I find amazing considering some of the chores. I then scoot everyone out of the house and all of the houses with school aged children gather at the office and we walk to school.

I then eat breakfast at 7:30 which consists of hard boiled eggs (already getting really old :) ), yogurt if we are lucky, bananas which seem to breed more and more fruit flies every day and dry white toast, which is more like crutons with jam. Honestly, all of the meals have been great, breakfast is the only one that leaves a little to be desired. I would kill for a glass of orange juice at this point! I then go to the office and work for a few hours until the kids come home from school. Lunch is at 12:30 then we have nap time and all of the adults nap too, we go back to work at 2:30 then at 4:15 I go to the house to prepare for bath time and the egg and bread snack they have every day at 4:30. As the older kids filter in from school, they go take a bath, slather on the baby care again and then sit down for egg and bread. It takes me forever to peel the eggs, but each kid gets a slice of homemade bread and a boiled egg with salt if they want it. A cup of water rounds out the snack. The mamas have these great propane stoves that NONE of them use except to boil water. Instead the cook on Jikos, which are steel pots they put charcoal in the center and then put a pot on top of it…all of which is outside on the porch. It is hysterical. All meals are cooked on these 2’ in diameter cookers on the porch. The kids do their chores and then have a movie until dinner at 6:30. After dinner it is time for a story then bedtime. The volunteers and staff have dinner at 7:30 and then I am usually ready to totally pass out by that time.

The little kids have preschool at the village and then seem to hang around our office until the big kids get home, so I try and play with them a lot as they keep coming in for a “ballie” or to help make paper airplanes. The current song that the preschoolers sing all of the time is “elephant, elephant” and it is hysterical. I am still not sure of all of the words to it, but they sure love to sing it.






The picture is of Gabriella doing the Elephant Dance!