Another day in Moshi

Dear Family and Friends,

This was another very normal day in quiet and dusty Moshi, our adopted home town at the edge of coffee and banana plantations on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Jean and I had very typical mornings at our work assignments. I’ll describe two new activities that I tried with my group of 5-7 year old orphans. After using flash cards to go through the English alphabet I introduced them to saying phrases such as “howdy-doody,” “oopsey-doopsey,” and “itsy-bitsy”… over and over again. This was to help them become accustomed to making sounds that they don’t normally hear. We had a great time with these funny sounds. Then we did a connect-the-dots exercise, each dot representing a letter of the alphabet.
So when they properly connected A to B to C and on until the end, the outline of an elephant resulted. For many, this was very challenging. But when it was completed, everyone got a large sticker plastered to their forehead and was permitted to color their elephant. And every 3 minutes or so, we were able to trade crayons so that all elephants ended up being multi-colored. Some looked quite strange. But we all had fun, and were very proud of our work.

After lunch Jean and I washed our laundry in a couple buckets
(with the liquid Tide that we brought along), and hung our clothes to dry on a line behind our residence. When that was finished we hired a taxi and driver for three hours ($30) to take us to sights in Moshi that we have wanted to see. We visited the two top resort hotels, a coffee plantation, the International School, Moshi University, a couple upscale residential neighborhoods, and Tanzania’s largest and best hospital.

We arrived at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre as visiting hours were beginning, so Jean and I walked through the main entrance with a hoard of others acting as though we were there to visit someone. We followed the crowd to the third floor and viewed various activities including patients in their rooms (15 or so in each single large room) and others still on gurneys in hallways. We observed doctors and nurses in consultation and darting in and out of patients’ rooms. We did not take photos or invade anyone’s privacy, but were able to see what it is like to be a patient in Tanzania’s best hospital. The provided care, services, equipment, and environment don’t come close to meeting US standards, but we were impressed by much of what we saw. The place is huge and serves hundreds of patients from many parts of the country. It also has a highly respected college for training medical professionals.

Finally, we stopped at the Moshi Country Club and Golf Course.
Like everything else in Moshi the course and club house are under maintained. I walked down a couple very dry fairways and looked at two straggly greens with their sand traps, and then went to the clubhouse where I learned that I could play as much golf as I want for a daily fee of $10.00. Clubs, tees, and golf balls could be rented for $7.00, and a helper to pull a hand cart of clubs (there are no mechanized golf carts) and tell me where the holes are and to help look for balls and keep them away from monkeys and street children would cost $1.50 per round. If there is time before we leave, I may give golf in Tanzania a try. What a memorable experience it would be. People from India dominate the expatriate community in Moshi, so a lot of the golfers on the course looked like they were from the sub-continent.

We arrived back at Home-Based in time to shower and enjoy the evening meal. When everyone was finished eating, Jean and I introduced Bananagrams to the group.
It’s a table game that we learned to play while in Morocco. It’s a wonderfully fun and social game (somewhat like anagrams and scrabble) which I predict will be played every evening between now and when we leave Tanzania. Other volunteers seemed to enjoy it as much as we do.

Jean is already asleep and we’ve both already enjoyed our daily allocation of M&M’s, so there’s nothing left to do but sign off and wish you all a good night’s sleep. Lala salama fo fo fo!

We love you all very much…
Babu and Mama Jean