I’m finally trying to catch up on keeping in touch! Internet access and connection speeds are definitely a challenge here (i.e. they suck!). I’ve more or less figured out my monthly expenses, so I think I can get internet at home, however I know that there will be a million tiny details and bugs to work out before everything starts running smoothly. Hopefully it will happen soon. I’m feeling so cut off!

Work Update
I’ve been working about a month now and I’m starting to get a sense of the organization and what I will be doing. Although I am officially working with the Arusha Catholic Archdiocese, I am specifically working in one part of the organization called Uhai Centre. Uhai means life in Swahili and they are trying to help people living with HIV/AIDS and their affected families and friends to live and keep their dignity. They offer free voluntary counseling and HIV testing, free medical consultations and prescriptions to deal with opportunistic infections and STIs. They don’t offer ARV treatment, but part of the Archdiocesan offices do, so it is available for some people. They also do a lot of social work that includes supporting orphans and vulnerable children with school fees and uniforms as well as food. They facilitate clubs for orphans and for people living with HIV and AIDS as well as have regular workshops and training sessions to teach people how to live with their condition and also to teach volunteers how to do local area monitoring and home-based care.

Amazingly, there are only 8 people and 3 support staff who are paid to do all of this work. There are more people who need services than the Centre can accommodate and their resources are severely limited. Their funding for the past 3 years has been mainly provided by 2 sources and while there have been other smaller funders, the projects are now over or they have withdrawn funding. It seems that it will be my job to find more funding and keep all the funders happy by being in charge of reporting and monitoring.

At first I was a little daunted by this prospect – I’m so new and don’t know enough about the organization to take on so much. But, I was told to put together the most recent narrative report required for the current funders, and it’s not so bad a job. I get to tell everyone what I need from them and I do the rest. I’m learning a lot from the information I have to include. For example, the local and national HIV/AIDS situation, as well as challenges the organization faces. I get the sense that everyone knows how to do their own job, but there’s only one person (the coordinator) who seems to understand how it all works together (and I’m learning). Getting people to give me reports is eye-opening – monitoring is probably the biggest challenge. I’ve been told many times that it would be the most difficult aspect of the job (is that why they gave it to me?). But, my overall job is to help build capacity, so that may mean developing institutional memory. I can’t be the only one who knows how and is capable of it. What will happen when I leave? My brain has generated lots of ideas and they’re coming along, so I will keep you updated.

Living update
Our house seems to be working smoothly (well, with the exception of no internet – yet). We had a few cockroaches, but with some shoe throwing and broom squishing as well as some Raid spraying, they seem to have gone away. It also helped that we found some holes where they were probably coming from and filled them in with silicone. There haven’t really been any other major bug problems in the house. Tiny biting insects that can’t be controlled are another problem however. There is something fairly nasty here called the Nairobi fly and it doesn’t really bite but somehow releases a toxin that leaves hideous red and pussy welts. They notoriously like soft tender spots (like necks). My roommate got one on the inside of her wrist in the first week – I called it a flesh-eating disease. I should have been kinder. This week they got me – and on the neck of course! It started out looking like a rash, but 24 hours later it was obvious and there’s no way to hide it. It is very painful and there’s nothing to be done, but wait until it goes away. I realized that I probably killed a couple of them under my net and unwittingly slept on them. I won’t do that again!

We have to be careful of going out at night. There are no street lights anywhere and apparently it’s not so safe to be white or Indian (who knew?) at night. So, we have to find a reliable taxi we can call. It’s not as hard as it originally seemed. We have a night watchman who is very concerned with our safety, so that helps. I’ve been able to get out a bit and listen to some good music and even watch a movie under the stars!

Funny words
I have come to the conclusion that my English is not the same English that people are speaking here. The thing that I hate the most is when I ask a question using ‘or.’ For example: “is the store near or far away?” And people answer “yes.” Aaarrggh! I often have to repeat myself or clarify what I mean. Of course, I have to ask people to do the same in Swahili, which is coming along, but slowly. The most entertaining is hearing some interesting pronunciations – such as ‘dough,’ but sounds like ‘doff’ (it works for tough and rough, why not dough?) The other thing is people confusing when to use the hard and soft ‘g.’ People will often use the hard ‘g’ for words like ‘vegetables’ or ‘digital,’ but use the soft ‘g’ for words like ‘gift.’ It kills me every time.

Lots of attention
I am mzungu (sounds like ma-zoong-goo) here. It means white person and kids especially like to point me out and say ‘good morning!’ or ‘good afternoon!’ invariably at the wrong time of day, but it is so adorable. I was recently at a primary school and I had a huge following of children who didn’t say anything, they just followed me around. I have to apologize anytime I am with Tanzanians, because it always happens. The kids were shy at first when I offered to shake hands, but soon they overcame it and were falling over each other for a chance to shake a mzungu hand. The bad part about the attention is that everything costs more for me. In Nicaragua and Guatemala we always called it the gringo tax, but could sometimes avoid it if we were with a local person. Not so here. I had to take a taxi recently with someone from work and my colleague was negotiating the price and the taxi driver told him that he would have to pay more because of the mzungu. I had to apologize again.

That’s it for now
All in all, things are going pretty well, but I miss home! I don’t want to leave, but I miss you all very much. Write me! Call me! Send me something!

More soon