The End

Wow. If time went fast while I was travelling, it has positively flown by since I’ve been home. Somehow I have been back in the USA for two weeks already and it has been a very dreamlike two weeks. I have been visiting people and places that I missed while I was gone and it has been great but has also been a bit weird for me. Travel -especially solo travel- makes returning home a very weird experience. In the last ten months I have seen and done so much. I have changed internally and externally in large and small ways. In my personal life, everything seems drastically different. However, even in ten months, not that much changes at home. People have the same jobs and basically the same schedules and everything is almost just how I left it. It is strange for me to feel so different but for nothing around me to reflect that difference. I have been especially struck by just how easy everything is in the US; In the countries I lived in, and especially in Tanzania, nothing is easy. If you need to go somewhere you have to figure out whether you can walk there or if not, what public transport to use. Then you have to deal with massive amounts of people, animals, and food products all vying for space on said transportation or the walking route. Then you have to figure out where to go to get the item that you need; there are no Targets in the “developing” world and so you have to go to a specific place to find what you're looking for, if you need more than one thing, more often than not you will be going to more than one place. When you find the item you need, you have to make sure the price is fair and isn’t being raised because you're foreign (which it usually is) so then you have to bargain in another language to get a reasonable price that is still probably more expensive than a local would pay. Then when you want to go home and relax, maybe take a shower or use the wifi, you have to hope that the power and the water haven’t been shut off. To sum it up, life in these countries isn’t a breeze; life in the USA is a breeze. If I need to buy something here I can just get in my car, drive myself there on smooth paved roads, and be in and out in less than ten minutes with the thing I needed and ten other things that I didn’t need. This has been a bit hard for me to adjust to and so I have been walking a lot of places in the last two weeks because that feels more natural to me right now than just getting in my car. The other day I walked five miles and took the bus for another two, it felt way more normal than driving myself has felt so far. When I drive or when I walk, another somewhat unnerving thing for me has been the lack of people out on the streets. In all my other countries, the streets are always crowded with people and animals and wheelbarrows etc. Here there are no people on the streets, everyone is inside either a car or a building and it has been a little bit weird for me to see everything so empty.

It is great to be home and back with people and in places I know and love but it has definitely been a bit of an adjustment for me and will probably continue to be. I hope to never take for granted the ease of life in this country and I'm going to try to keep up the habit of walking places that are only a two minute drive away. Now that I've talked about what being home is like, let’s go back to the trip for a bit. Since I’ve been back, people have wanted to know what place was my favorite or which I liked the most. First of all, it is very hard to compare these three countries since they are all so different from each other. I can only base my opinions on the experience that I had in each country and that experience was based on the people I met, the places I visited, and the work I was doing primarily. Overall I have to say that Argentina was my best all-around experience. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that I had an amazing host situation in Argentina and I absolutely loved my placement most of the time. I was able to really blend in and integrate in Argentina and this made a tremendous positive impact, one that I didn’t even really realize until I went to countries where this wasn’t the case. My host mom invited me into her life wholeheartedly and so I had a family in Argentina. I met Venetia two days into my trip and we became immediate close friends. I was having a great time learning and working on my equine therapy project and I was playing with kids and riding horses on a regular basis. Argentina is a huge country but is relatively easy to travel around in. It has amazingly nice people, incredibly delicious food, and so many amazing places to visit and I was speaking Spanish all day every day. I have almost nothing negative to say about my experience in Argentina and so that’s why I would say it was overall the best experience.

That being said, Peru and Tanzania are both amazing countries and I had very different but also positive experiences in each of these countries. In Peru, I really learned how to be on my own. I spent a lot of time by myself in Peru and while I did make some good friends, I don’t think they will be as lasting as some of my Argentinian friendships. Peru was a very emotionally taxing experience for me since it was the “Wednesday” of my trip and came after such an amazing experience in Argentina. It is a beautiful country and I saw and did so many awesome things while I was there. I trekked the Inca trail to Machu Picchu with a group of awesome strangers who became friends and hung out with monkeys in the Amazon jungle. I think Peru is where I really learned the most about myself and learned how to be really happy doing things on my own which is a very important thing. I did love my placement in Peru and I would like to think that my presence in those kids’ lives made a positive difference but it was so short that it’s hard to be sure.

Tanzania was such an amazing and different experience that it is really hard to even compare it to my experience in South America. Life is difficult in Tanzania and if I stood out as foreigner in Peru, it was nothing compared to how much I stood out in Tanzania. However the people that I met in Tanzania made the experience the incredibly positive and unique experience that it was. First of all, having my best friend with me was awesome, I loved sharing all the awesomeness with her! Second, I made some really good friends with the other volunteers that I think will be lasting friendships which is great. Third, the kids who lived on my street were just amazing and my experience wouldn’t have been half as positive if I hadn’t had them to play with and say hi to every single day. Fourth, and most important were the women at Positive Love. These ladies became my African family in a way that is really indescribable. They are my friends, my mamas, my students, my teachers and so much more. The relationship that I was able to form with them was completely unique and different to anywhere else. Positive Love was also the placement where I was able to make the most impact. Not only did I form wonderful relationships with the women, but I was able to leave the women with an entirely finished and furnished shop where they can sell their products and make money to support themselves. I met my Compassion children in Tanzania and I climbed Kilimanjaro with my family there. It would dishonest to say that I loved every part of my time there, but the things that I did love were just so important and strong that Tanzania could also be called my favorite experience.

It’s hard to fit this trip and it’s components into boxes of favorite and least favorite, most difficult and least difficult etc. The trip was an amazing, somewhat indescribable (though I have tried my best) experience and every part, good, bad, hard, and easy was integral in making it the incredible experience that it was. I believe that I am a different person because of this trip and I have learned so much, I hope that I can hold onto all that I've learned and that I can carry it into the future with me whatever it holds. I also hope that those of you that read this blog have gained something from doing so and have enjoyed the experience with me. I've told you countless times how much the support means to me but I really can’t say it enough, there were times when I really may not have made it through if I didn’t know that I had the support system that I do behind me. All I can say is THANK YOU. Times a million. Go out and make the world a positive place. Don’t take your blessings for granted and try to put yourselves in other people’s shoes as often as you can. Try to have patience with the people in your everyday life and try to find the positive spin on everything-there always is one it’s just sometimes harder to find. I know that this is all somewhat cheesy and cliché advice but it’s true and I believe it will make your life happier and will probably make the people around you a bit happier as well. Thanks again for joining in on the ride; I've loved sharing it with all of you.

LP          

The final countdown

As crazy as it is, I only have two weeks left here in Tanzania! So what have I been up to in my last month in this country? Seeing new places, making positive changes at Positive Love, meeting more Compassion kids and hanging out with the people I’ve met here. Last week Briana and I made our way to the city of Mwanza which is on the shores of Lake Victoria. Our reason for going was that we had our last two sponsor visits to attend, one with a child I sponsor, and one with a child that is sponsored by a lady at my church and asked us to visit on her behalf. Our visits were on Monday and Tuesday but we arrived in Mwanza on Saturday in order to sightsee and enjoy our time near Lake Victoria. The hotel we stayed in was about a mile from the lake and they organized a hike for us that took us down to the lake and up through all of the giant rocks and boulders which give Mwanza its nickname of Rock City. The hike was really nice and the views of the lake were beautiful, we got to see some local fishermen pulling in their nets and said hi to the many children who enjoyed following us around. On Monday it was time for this first visit with my sponsor child, Veronica. I was a bit nervous for this visit because my letter writing relationships have always been a bit stronger with the boys I sponsor than with the girls for some reason. I have also only been sponsoring Vero for three years so we haven’t had quite as long of a relationship. I needn’t have worried though because from the first hug, to the games of jump rope, to the exchanging of gifts, to the last hug, we had a wonderful visit together. Vero is a singer just like Alpha and sings in her local choir, she also really loves sports and loves playing all kinds of outdoor sports games with her three sisters. Her mother and grandmother were both very excited to have me in the house and were so welcoming. We played games together, shared stories, and enjoyed a nice lunch together before saying goodbye. It was a wonderful visit and I’m so glad we got to meet one another, I think it will really strengthen our letter writing relationship! The next day we made the long trip to the city of Shirati to meet Rachel. Rachel is sponsored by the deacon of my church, a woman who I’ve known my whole life and asked me to visit her sponsored child on her behalf the moment she heard that I was going to Tanzania. Again, I was a bit nervous for this visit as I wasn’t sure what it would be like to meet a child who I had never had any communication with but again I needn’t have worried. The visit with Rachel was just as special as the visits with my sponsored children had been, she is an extremely sweet girl who also likes to sing and participates in the tailoring program at her center and is very good at sewing. She has a very big extended family full of women, but in her immediate family she is the youngest and the only daughter, she has five older brothers! Her mother was so incredibly happy to have us there that she was on the verge of tears most of the time we were there. Rachel showed me the collection of letters that she has from Beth and it is clear that they have a wonderful relationship with one another. It was great to spend the day with Rachel and her family and I can’t wait to get home and give Beth and first hand account of the day. As much as I have loved having the opportunity to have these visits, they are a bit stressful and require a lot of energy and planning so I am relieved that they are over. I definitely want to return and visit again someday and hopefully I will be able to visit all of the children I sponsor all over the world in the future.

After returning from our trip we tallied up the total from our Positive Love Christmas campaign and discussed the next steps for the shop and the women. I’m sure you’re wondering how much we raised, our total was $2300! I am overwhelmed by the amount of support that our friends and family showed during this campaign and cannot thank you all enough! The next step in getting the shop ready to go was getting furniture. In Tanzania there are no ikea stores so we had to hire a carpenter and tell him exactly what we wanted him to build for us which we did. Our shop now has shelves, tables, purse trees, and a cashier desk! The women were so excited the day that the furniture arrived and so were Briana and I, it looks amazing! We are so proud and excited of what we have been able to accomplish in our three months here! At Positive Love every day we have been busy filling all of our online orders and spending time with women, as I write this I only have seven more days at Positive Love which is very sad. I have loved every place I have volunteered on this trip, but the women at Positive Love have become some of my very close friends and I will really miss spending every day with them.

In the past week here in Tanzania I have been to a natural spring/pool in the middle of the desert, I have made tons of beaded jewelry, I have eaten at a delicious local BBQ restaurant in Arusha, I have climbed out of the window of a dalla with a broken door, I have played with my doggies, and I have gone without power for days at a time. Living and working in Africa is really a hard experience to describe. It’s hot, people harass me all the time and raise their prices because I’m white, every time I try to dry my laundry it rains, dogs barking and roosters crowing keep me up all night, and I am constantly dirty. Yet despite all of this, I can only look at my time here positively. I have made lasting friends with other volunteers, I have formed wonderful relationships with the women at my placement, I have bettered the lives of three sweet street dogs, I have had amazing visits with my Compassion kids, I have played tons of games with the neighborhood children, I have had conversations with a lot of random Africans, I have traveled outside of the part of Tanzania where I live, and I have shopped in the local markets where white people hardly ever venture. 

Here in Tanzania, the highs are high and the lows are low but they are different entirely to highs and lows in other places. There are things that I hope to never take for granted again, like the ability to drive myself where I want when I want, fixed prices that don’t have to be bargained lower, meat that doesn’t have bones in it, machines that wash and dry my clothes, being able to walk down the street without being yelled at every two minutes, and staying clean for more than 30 minutes after showering. What will I miss? So much. The friendliness of strangers, the locals who don’t harass me but try to help, the bright colored kangas that all the African women wear, the nonexistent rules of the road which get you places so much faster, the kids that just want a smile or a hello from a white person and their whole day will be made, the women at Positive Love, the dogs at Positive Love, the Italian café where Briana and I spend every Tuesday afternoon, and those are just to name a few. There’s a feeling that comes with living in Africa, especially when you really live here-taking the local transport, working with locals, and shopping in the local markets-that’s hard to explain even to myself, let alone to others. I have reached a point in my travels where I am yearning to be home but I also know that I will miss my life in Tanzania so much once I am back in the comfort zone of home. Three months here has felt like the blink of an eye and now that I’m down to the last two weeks I feel like I want to cry, tears of happiness to be going home and tears of sadness to be leaving the beautiful people of this country.  This will be my last international, African, and Tanzanian blog post; next time I post it will be to reflect on my journey as whole and will be coming from the USA. I have learned so much from Tanzania but I can tell it still has so much to teach me, I am confident that this is not my last trip to Tanzania and definitely not my last trip to Africa.

Thank you again to everyone who supported the Positive Love campaign and thank you to everyone who has prayed and sent me good thoughts over the last ten months. Please keep them up for the next two weeks and for my journey home, I appreciate you all more than I can say! Next time I write, I’ll be stateside! Have a great two weeks and GO BRONCOS.

LP

In kindness there is goodness, and in goodness there is magic

Hello friends and family! I want to use this blog post as an opportunity to talk about some small but important events and things that are part of my life here in Tanzania. Universal kindness is something I have witnessed overwhelmingly on this trip and here in Tanzania it has been no different. I believe that people are inherently good and that given the opportunity, most people and animals just want to show love and affection and want to receive it in return.

First of all I would like to introduce everyone to Mama and Baby. Baby and Mama are two female dogs that live on the street outside of the Positive Love lot. I met them in my second weekend in Arusha; Mama was heavily pregnant and Baby was very timid and had a horrible skin problem. The ladies at Positive Love always shooed the dogs away when they came near to us and told us that they were bad dogs. I couldn’t believe it, they seemed like such sweet dogs and almost all of the street dogs I’ve met on my world journey have just wanted to love and be loved. After our first weekend had come and gone, we came to Positive Love on Monday to find that Mama was no longer pregnant and that there were seven brand new puppies living in the bushes on the side of the road. I couldn’t just watch a new mama dog and a sick dog live out their sad street lives, so the next day I bought a big bag of dog food and started what would become a daily ritual of feeding the dogs and giving them water and lots of affection. As it turns out, they are two of the sweetest dogs ever! Sometimes they fight with each other for my attention and they are always waiting outside the door of Positive Love for when I will next come out and see them. Now its seven weeks later and there is only one puppy left with Mama, we hope and assume that the others were taken into people’s homes and have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise. The ladies at PL at first thought I was crazy to be feeding street dogs, in Africa many people have a fear of dogs which leads them to treat them poorly which leads the dogs to defensive behavior and just keeps going in a circle. Now the PL ladies help feed the dogs when I am not there and always make sure to save lunch scraps for them. A few have even come out with me and tentatively pet the dogs and been surprised at how sweet they are. The locals who walk by are also baffled by my behavior since they usually avoid and shoo away street dogs they come upon. They love to watch me feeding and playing and always want to why I’m feeding street dogs and why I’m not afraid of them. Baby’s skin condition has much improved with her regular dog food meal and Mama is gaining weight now that she doesn’t have seven puppies to constantly feed. They know who I am and they get so excited when I walk down the street, sometimes they can’t contain themselves and they start howling and barking. I know that they will be sad when I leave and that I can only feed them while I’m still here but it seems to me like feeding and loving dogs who have never been fed or loved is better than doing nothing, even if it is only temporary. I have considered bringing Baby home with me since we have developed a special relationship, but I’m afraid that the journey would be extremely traumatizing for her and there are no pet transport agencies anywhere in Tanzania to help me with the logistics. I can only hope that the PL ladies will continue to give the doggies food scraps and water once I leave. These dogs are a very important and very special part of my time in Tanzania and it makes the pain of missing my dogs a little bit less and brightens my day.

Secondly, I would like to introduce you all to the group of boys in our neighborhood who have become wonderful friends. There are an ever increasing number of neighborhood children who come to our house to play but the main group of boys are Freeman, Benedict, Baraka, Abdi, and Asumani. The boys come over every day after school and do ‘class’ with the volunteers here. Some teach English, some teach math, some color, and some just play and interact. A couple of Saturdays ago, the boys came into our compound uninvited and very secretive, when we came out to see what was happening, we found that they had set up a party for us! They brought tablecloths and dishes from their homes and filled them with candies and snacks and fruit that they had bought with money that they had been saving for weeks in order to do this for us. Many of the volunteers, myself included, were almost brought to tears. These boys, who live in poverty and have next to nothing, saved their money for WEEKS to throw a party for the volunteers who teach them and play with them. We had an amazing day with all of the neighborhood children, making origami, coloring pictures, playing football, doing cushion gymnastics and enjoying the snacks. It was probably one of the most touching and amazing days I have had on this journey and possibly in my lifetime. These boys are truly something special.

Finally, last weekend I had a wonderful experience at a local organization here in Arusha. The organization is called Shanga and it is an organization that employs Tanzanians that have disabilities and are therefore unable to find work anywhere else. They learn different craft making skills and using as much recycled material as possible they make beaded jewelry, they weave throw rugs and blankets, they blow amazing glass products, they recycle metal and make metal crafts, and some learn to tailor and sew and make amazing clothing and pillowcases to name a few. The location in Arusha is both a factory and a shop. When we arrived, we got a free tour of the factory and got to see all of the different people working and making the crafts. Some of them are deaf, some are paralyzed, some have lost appendages but all of them are smiling and waving and working hard to create the most beautiful products! Then we were taken to the shop where we could buy all of the products, everything in there is so amazing, I almost bought out the whole store! It is a beautiful location and such a wonderful organization. Not only are they saving people by employing those with disabilities, but they are also contributing to saving the planet by using recycled material whenever possible and on top of that, a portion of some of their products also goes to wildlife conservation efforts. Talk about inspiring. One of my dreams is to start my own nonprofit or NGO, maybe something like this is in my future! Can you imagine if every city had a place like that!?

Things like these are what make traveling so far and for so long worth it. There are some amazing people in this world and to see that kindness can be found everywhere, in even the most unlikely of places, is such an uplifting and inspiring thing. I hope that all of you try to find kindness in your everyday lives, I’m sure it is there but it is often easy to overlook. I tend to let negative things take up more of my energy and my thoughts, but I’m trying to change that and overlook the negative and find the positive in everything I do, in everyone I meet, and in every place I go and I hope that you do too! My positive outlook has definitely been put to the test this past week, its been a hard week just dealing with the logistics of living in Africa and I also recieved the very disappointing news that I did not get the internship with Compassion. It came down to me and another candidate and they went with the other person. I'm pretty upset about it and now I'm a bit lost as to what my next steps will be when I get home. Prayers and good thoughts are VERY appreciated at this point. If the Broncos can come back after two losses, so can I! Thanks for reading everyone!!

LP

Happy African Birthday to me

What an eventful two weeks! After we got back from Nairobi we had a nice week and a half in Arusha making jewelry and hanging out at Positive Love. The first big news to share is that our Christmas campaign is live now and only open until the end of the month. Instead of just asking for donations to support Positive Love we decided to open an online store for our friends and family to buy Positive Love products, especially since the timing is perfect for Christmas! The link is shopforpositivelove.com please check it out and buy some nice Christmas presents and support a wonderful organization, the women are so excited about the orders and have been working so hard to get them all done! Second big news is that the Positive Love shop building is entirely painted inside and out and it looks beautiful! It is a beautiful bright blue color and the inside looks so nice and professional. The next step is to get shelving and tables to decorate the inside and get it ready to display merchandise and we are hoping to get that done soon.

 After our quiet week and half back in our routine, we headed out again, this time for the island of Zanzibar! Zanzibar is an island right off the coast of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean and it is known for being a big tourist destination. This trip was an early birthday celebration for me and we were very excited. We flew to Stone Town on a Thursday and immediately headed for a traditional Swahili dinner on a rooftop restaurant. It was absolutely beautiful and the food was delicious, it was a great welcome to our trip. The next day we spent the morning wandering the streets and alleys until we were thoroughly lost, when luckily a tour guide came up to us and offered us a tour which we happily accepted. This turned out to be a great idea because we learned a lot about the history of Stone Town and the different buildings and cool architecture there. Stone Town is a really cool city with a really cool history and it was really fun just to wander the narrow streets and pop into shops and just lose ourselves in the atmosphere. That night we got a taxi to our beach hotel where we were going to spend the next three nights, located on the eastern side of the island in a small town called Matamwe. We arrived and it was like walking into a little piece of paradise. The hotel was beautiful with dark wood, white paint, and blue cushions everywhere to highlight the main colors of the beach-blue water, powder white sand, and wooden dhow boats floating just offshore. We were welcomed like old friends by the manager, Karin and shown to a beautiful room adorned with fresh flowers everywhere! We spent the next morning walking through the shallow, crystal clear water of an extremely low tide dodging sea urchins, finding bright colored starfish, coral, and fish and watching local women harvesting their seaweed. This was just as good as snorkeling since the water was so clear and beautiful! The only downside was that I didn’t prepare to be out in the sun for so long and thoroughly burnt the front of my legs down to what felt like the nerve endings. Oh well. We spent the remainder of the day laying in the sand in between the pool and the beach, listening to the waves and enjoying a refreshing dip whenever we got too hot. The next day, we did exactly the same thing! It was so relaxing, the food and service at our hotel were wonderful and we truly just switched off and had an amazing, relaxing beach vacation. On our last morning, I got up with the sun and watched an incredible sunrise before we enjoyed one last delicious breakfast and headed back to Arusha. To say we loved our time in Zanzibar would be a huge understatement and I am already trying to figure out when I can go back!

                                      

After spending less than twenty-four hours back in Arusha we were on a bus and headed for our next destination, the capital city of Dodoma, to spend my birthday with another one of my Compassion International sponsor students, Alpha. I was particularly excited about this visit for a few reasons; first of all, Alpha and I share the same birthday and that was the day of our visit so we got to spend the day together. Second of all, Alpha is 20 years old which means that we have been able to have a bit more of a substantial pen pal experience since he is old enough to understand my letters and respond to my questions and ask his own.

(If anyone is interested in being a Compassion sponsor but isn’t sure about a long term commitment, please consider sponsoring an older child. It is harder for them to find sponsors and in some ways it is a more rewarding experience because the letter writing aspect can be a bit more substantial than with a younger child!!)

Needless to say, I was very excited for this visit and when we arrived at the Compassion center, I could immediately see that Alpha was just as excited, if not more excited, than I was for this meeting. When I got out of the car I was greeted by a huge hug from Alpha and a local musical group who were playing drums and singing traditional songs for me. Alpha and I shared many hugs and exchanged our mutual disbelief and wonder that this meeting had finally come to pass. We watched the music group for a long time and they sang personal songs about me and Alpha and the whole time Alpha held my hand and kept saying that he couldn’t believe I was actually there. We met the staff from his center who are all amazing people and very hard workers. There are only three staff members for 240 students! (40 of their students are new and are looking for sponsors so again if you’re interested in sponsoring please consider a student from the Tanzanian TAG Philadelphia center!) Like I said, the staff are incredible and we spent the first part of the visit hearing about and touring the center and takings lots and lots of photos with one another! Since Alpha is 20 years old, he is very good at speaking English, meaning that we were able to chat and communicate without having to use a translator all the time which was really awesome. After our tour we all ate lunch together and shared some birthday cake. In Tanzania it is the custom for the birthday people to feed cake to the rest of the group so Alpha and I had fun shoving cake into everyone faces! After the cake I gave Alpha his birthday gifts and he presented me with a very nice birthday card. After the exchanging of gifts, we drove for thirty minutes out to the farming area where Alpha’s family lives during harvest time. We were greeted so enthusiastically by Alpha’s entire extended family, grandmothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, cousins and siblings and of course, his mother. All of them had dressed up for the occasion and the excitement was palpable! Alpha was clearly very happy to introduce me to his wonderful family and we had a great time swapping stories, praying, singing, eating more cake, and taking lots more pictures. After saying warm goodbyes to the family, we headed back to the city center where Alpha introduced me to his friends and showed me the student hostel where he is currently living while he attends vocational school to be a mechanic. After this last tour, it was time for goodbyes. Alpha only has two years left in the Compassion program and it was hard to say goodbye knowing that we might not see each other again but who knows what the future holds and God has planned, you never know what might happen! Alpha is a really wonderful young man and is working very hard to raise himself from poverty and has promised me that he will work hard in school and will practice his English so he can get a good job when he has finished his program. I am very proud of him and this visit was a huge bucket list item that I can now cross off, it was one of the best experiences of my life and I will hold it in my heart forever.

Briana and I are now back home in Arusha for two weeks and we will be working hard at Positive Love and trying to cross a few more things off our Arusha bucket list since we only have four free weekends left here if you can believe that! I haven’t heard anything new about the Compassion internship so prayers and good thoughts for that are still appreciated! Also if my journeys and experiences have at all inspired the kind hearts that you all have, please check out shopforpositivelove.com and compassion.com and consider buying products or sponsoring a child. Also on Compassion’s website you can donate to their programs without committing to a sponsorship so check it out!

Sorry to hear that the Broncos lost the last two games but I have no doubt that we will put Brock and Texans in their place on Monday night! Until next time!

LP