Dear Family and Friends,
It rained again and a lot overnight, so mud and standing water have replaced Moshi’s dust and dirty air. What a dramatic change in our environment. When we awakened this morning the air was cool and refreshing. We stayed in bed a few extra minutes to take it all in.
Today is a national holiday in Tanzania in honor of Mohammed’s birthday so schools, businesses, and government offices were closed. Orphanages were open for business, however, so Jean went with me to TunaHAKI and helped teach and play with the children. We try to make the play as spirited and educational as possible. The children love putting puzzles together so we use puzzles as an opportunity to reinforce the English words and numbers that they are learning. They catch on very quickly, and are great at mimicking.
The big hit today was helping the children decorate the sides of the 25 small white pastry sacks that Jean brought from our neighborhood BreadWorks store in Louisville. Each child used a series of crayons that we also brought along to carefully draw and then color a variety of flowers and animals on the sides of their very own sack. Which they then guarded as if the small sack was their most prized possession.
They worked very hard and were very focused on this activity for quite a while, so each child was rewarded with five stickers most of which also ended up as decorations on their sack. Everyone had lots of fun, and there was great excitement in the room. At the end of the morning Jean led us all in a hokey-pokey kind of dance that the kids greatly enjoyed.
(As stated earlier, the acrobatic training and workout activity that I was hoping to observe takes place in the evenings and weekends, and since I’m only at the orphanage in the mornings I haven’t been involved with any of this side of the orphanage’s activity. That has been one of very few disappointments.)
Jean’s afternoon activities focused on walking the fifteen minutes to the center of Moshi pick-up the caftan that she had ordered earlier in the week. While downtown, she also visited the internet café to post several blog entries and buy 5 kilograms of kidney beans for the bean bag that she will use to prop her camera on the safari jeep. The dress is exactly what she hoped it would be. The cloth’s colors and design are East African and there was enough fabric left over to create a head wrap. One of the Tanzanian CCS staff members showed Jean how to make the wrap, so she is very pleased.
If all goes as planned, we will post additional blog entries on Friday afternoon. Early on Saturday, we leave Moshi to meet Hank and Margie Clark in Arusha… and then we begin a week-long safari. We do not know when we will have internet access after leaving Moshi on Saturday, but will do our best to post updates as often as possible next week while on safari.
We love you all very much, and think of you often…
Babu and Mama Jean
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