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

Friends, blessings, and new experiences

Mambo everyone! It’s been quite a while since my last blog and lots of things have happened! Last time I posted I was just starting my placement and getting familiar with life here in Arusha. Now I am a month in to my placement, if you can believe that, and Arusha is feeling more and more like home!

In the week following my last post, Briana and I were super lucky to be able to reconnect with two of our guides from Kilimanjaro. Since we are staying in Tanzania for so long, we exchanged contact info with them and have stayed in touch. Since they are constantly climbing Africa’s largest mountain, we hadn’t been able to see them in person but then that weekend two of them said they were free and we made plans to hang out. On Saturday we met up with Richard, our lead guide, and he graciously invited us to his home to meet his wife and his adorable three month old son! We chatted about our time so far in Arusha and the climbs that he has done since ours and enjoyed reconnecting, he is a super genuine guy and we are so glad that we have been able to stay in touch! The next day, we hopped on a local bus to Moshi, about two hours away, where one of our guides, Baraka lives. He met us at the bus station and we all went to lunch together and again swapped stories about what we had been up to during our time apart. Baraka has been super busy and we were lucky to catch him during one of his very few days off of the mountain. We strolled around in Moshi and also got to hang out at his house for a bit before heading back to Arusha. All in all it was a wonderful weekend getting together with two great guys who we hope will be our friends for years to come!

The next big thing on our agenda was a long awaited and highly anticipated meeting with one of the children I sponsor through Compassion International. Compassion is an amazing organization and for only $38 a month people can support the school fees, dietary needs, clothing needs, and spiritual needs of a child and their family who are living in poverty. I currently sponsor six children and three of them live in Tanzania. September 26^th was the first planned visit and it was with my very first sponsor child, Emmanuel, who I have been sponsoring and exchanging letters with for the last seven years. Needless to say, I was very, very excited but also a bit nervous. How would a thirteen year old boy feel about meeting his 23 year old female sponsor? Well my nerves were unfounded because from the minute we arrived at the Compassion center and school I felt that Emmanuel and I had known each other forever, which we kind of have! It was absolutely amazing to meet the young man who I have communicated with for so along and watched grow up through pictures. He was shy, but it was easy to tell from our first hug that he felt our connection too. We met the staff at his Compassion center, which also houses a school, and they are wonderful! Very dedicated to their center and to bettering their community. Then we went to Emmanuel’s house where I got to meet and interact with his mother, who lives and works in Arusha but came just to meet me, and his grandmother who he lives with full time. I got to see his house and give him gifts which was very special. He especially loved the soccer ball, which I knew he would, and he carried it with him the entire rest of the day. His mother and grandmother are both wonderful and kind women and they were so welcoming to me and Briana. After the family meeting, we went back to the center to play a bit of soccer and get a tour. Then we all headed to a nice restaurant to have lunch together and then it was time for goodbyes. It was hard to say goodbye, and its hard to know that my sponsor child is so close but I can’t go visit him every day due to Compassion’s regulations. (which I understand and agree with). Emmanuel is a very sweet, talented young man and I am so blessed to be his sponsor and even more blessed that I had the opportunity to meet him face to face. It was an incredible experience and one I will never forget. It was very special to have my best friend there with me and she was a huge help in documenting the day for me so that I could fully enjoy my time without having to worry about getting enough pictures, thanks Briana:)

Finally, this past weekend Briana and I traveled to Nairobi in order to get a new ninety day Tanzania stamp. From Arusha, it takes about six hours on a shuttle to get to Nairobi, assuming you have no problems at the border. We left early on Friday morning and arrived in Nairobi around 3pm. We had booked two nights in the Sarova Stanley Hotel right in the middle of downtown Nairobi. The hotel is very historical and has had tons of famous guests such as Theodore Roosevelt, Earnest Hemingway, and Princess, soon to be queen, Elizabeth to name a few. On Friday afternoon we explored the city a bit and then enjoyed the comfort of our hotel. On Saturday we headed out to do two of the top tourist activities in Nairobi, visiting an elephant orphanage and sanctuary and a conservation center that breeds giraffes. First we headed to see the elephants who are all orphans under the age of three. They come tromping into a roped off area and are bottle fed by their keepers and then are free to walk around and play in the mud or play with the tourists. While we are watching the elephants, one of the keepers explains the important work of the orphanage, and introduces us to each elephant and tells us their story. It’s a very cool place to visit since they are doing really important work and of course, being that close to baby elephants was amazing. Next up was the giraffe center which is a center that educates underprivileged children about the importance of conservation and breeds the rare Rothschild giraffe. After learning about the work of the center and the different kinds of giraffes, we were able to pet, feed, headbutt, and even kiss the giraffes that live at the center. The giraffes are amazing and so beautiful and big at such a close range! Briana and I enjoyed spending time kissing and playing with Kelly and Eddie and even got to spend some time with four month old Maggie! It was as fun and amazing as it sounds and we loved every minute! On Saturday afternoon we enjoyed the amenities of our hotel, namely the heated outdoor pool. On Sunday morning we went to mass at a basilica around the corner from our hotel, the service was in English but all the songs were in Swahili which was fun. After church we headed back to the hotel for free heritage tour. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip! We had a personal guide who led us all around the hotel and told us the history of different rooms and furnishings. The Stanley hotel hosts the Exchange Bar which is the bar where the Kenyan stock exchange was first started, the Winston Churchill Ballroom where Princess Elizabeth had a coronation banquet and much more! We also got to see all of the exclusive suites that they have at the Stanley which were amazing!! It was a really interesting and fun tour and the staff obviously take great pride in working for such a historical hotel so they were very enthusiastic about sharing the history with us. After our tour and a goodbye to the hotel and the staff, we got on our shuttle and headed back to Arusha.

It’s been a very fun first month here and now that September is over, I know that the remainder of our trip is going to fly by. We have lots of things to look forward to, like a trip to Zanzibar, three more Compassion visits, starting painting on the Positive Love shop and launching the Christmas campaign which should be happening any day! I also found out this morning that I have been selected to complete the first round of interviews for the internship at Compassion so thank you times a million for all of your thoughts and prayers, and please keep them coming, both for the internship and the remainder of my time here in Tanzania!

I miss watching the Broncos but I know they keep dominating! 4-0 baby!

Until next time,

LP