Tanzania: Day 1

well seeing how it's been exactly 1 year since i moved to tanzania, i figured it's about time that i share about it all.

i think the reason i've put off writing about it is because sometimes it just gets really overwhelming to think about. everything that happened on that trip was just such a crazy experience. and i know that's not the right word to use but it's the only word that ever came to mind.. "this is just crazy". even when i was living there, i didn't write in my journal a ton because it was too overwhelming to write down all the intimate details.

but here i am, one year later, and i'm finally going to try and share some of my experiences. please keep in mind that these are my own personal experiences and opinions. and just because i experienced it a certain way or have a specific opinion or standpoint on something, doesn't mean that that's how it is for all of tanzania or africa. i'm just sharing a little glimpse at what i went through and hope that it might open others eyes of our life outside of the cozy and comfy USA. also, i want to share my experience on volunteering in another country because a lot of people have asked me about how we did it.

so here it goes. get ready for a novel with photos of elephants and cute kids scattered in between.

how we decided to go to africa

my best friend alexis and i graduated from byu-hawaii in december 2013. alexis was a social work major, i was a peacebuilding major. and for both of our major requirements we had to have an internship related to our major in some way. my internship was required to last 6 weeks long. alexis' internship was required to last 12 weeks long. while we had different majors, we both had very similar ideas on what we wanted to do in the future and figured we should find an internship we could do together. we both were dying for the opportunity to go somewhere abroad for our internship and we both wanted to volunteer somewhere. we had discussed and explored tons of options for volunteering abroad but it all came down to one thing.... money.

it was beyond ridiculous that the main unwritten rule was that if you wanted to volunteer, you had to be willing to whip out several thousands of dollars to do so (not including your flight, housing, food, and other expenses). to this day, that annoys me. so many people don't get out and take advantage of an opportunity to do some good in the world because different business' have taken it upon themselves to turn volunteering into a money scheming business. and alexis and i had no interest (nor money) to participate in the scheme. finding an internship was beyond difficult. we both had spent the majority of college working with the ONE campaign, which is an organization that tries to shed light on extreme poverty and preventable diseases in africa. we both have had a desire to go to africa and volunteer our time in an extreme poverty setting so we began to focus our efforts on that when nothing else was working out.

anything and everything you can think of was typed into the google search box...
"volunteer africa free"
"orphanage africa"
"teach english africa"
"help africa"
everything and anything lead us to these big companies that offered a cozy 6 week program where you paid them ten grand and were then allowed to volunteer.

but through a huge and sketchy search, one day alexis stumbled upon a site for the jericho orphanage home in tanzania. it was a pretty legitimate website (compared to what else we had seen) and for $70/week you could come volunteer at their orphanage and it would cover your housing and food.
we were stoked. it seemed too good to be true (we later found out it was ha).

so with that, we contacted them and began the long process of paperwork for our internship. once the owner of the orphanage agreed for us to come, we had to get it approved by our school. we met with alexis' internship director and talked about it. at first he was pretty against it and alexis and i felt totally discouraged. we had worked so hard to find something and it was within reach and now being taken away. he was worried for our safety and said that we should all take a day to really think about it and pray about it and then set up a time to call & talk to the owner of the orphanage in tanzania. so we did what he said. we both really thought about it and prayed about it and felt good about going.

when we met back with her professor, we figured that he would still be against it and we would need to continue searching for something else. but surprisingly, when we met with him the next day he said that after praying about it and researching it more, he had a change of heart and felt really great about it too! we then talked to kabalo (the orphanage director), through a rough and broken up phone call with broken up english haha but everyone's nerves were calmed and we were given the green light to go!

best day ever.

there is a couple that generously donates their money to help pay for all the flights for students going on internships at byu-hawaii. they approved our internship and payed for a our flight (which was the main cost) and with that we were almost set. (just had to fill out a million pieces of paper work, get a few shots, purchase our malaria pills, buy our malaria nets, etc) and then we were set to leave on january 13, 2014. we finalized everything for our internship just 2 and a half weeks before we left for it.

i know i'm rambling a lot about things no one besides my husband cares to read about, but the reason i'm explaining it all so thoroughly is because a lot of the details will matter later on.

after christmas, new years and my birthday, we both flew to washington dc where we met up. my sister lives there so we stayed with her a night and then she took us to the airport the next morning.

i need to include this detail to the story... about 3 days before we had to leave, i got extremely nervous about going. so much fear came over me and every scary thought came to my mind. i decided to email the orphanage director again double checking some things with him. i asked him if we would have locks on our doors, if our stuff would be safe, if we would have internet to talk to our families, if we would be safe there, etc. he emailed me back and assured me that we would be very safe and to not worry. we would have internet and that everything would be okay. this calmed me down and i felt better about going.

the morning of.

the morning of was rough for me. i can't speak for alexis, although i know she had some nerves too, but it was really difficult for me. there was so much unknown about going to tanzania. we literally had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. the scariest part of it all was saying goodbye to our family and friends and not having any idea when we would be able to find wifi again to talk to them. i remember calling my mom to say goodbye, i just cried haha. i'm such a wimp i know. and i called kenneth too, and cried some more. it was difficult to get engaged and then say goodbye for 6 weeks. we got on the airplane and as we got ready to take off, we had to turn our cellular data off and embarrassingly enough, that was such a difficult moment. because i knew that for 6 weeks i wouldn't be getting any more texts or calls. it amazed me how attached i was to my phone without me even realizing it.

the flight was so long. i sat next to this lady and i'm not quite sure what ethnicity she was, possibly indian? but she didn't speak any english and she was sitting by the window, and i was by the isle. well every time she needed to get out of her seat she refused to let me stand up. i would try to move and she would grab my shoulders and shove me down haha. this little lady had some muscle! if i even tried to just move my legs a little to the left so she could squeeze by, she would shush me and start ranting in another language. this was the first moment when i started to realize that i was in for a very big culture shock. we finally landed in ethiopia where we got our first reality check. we were definitely not in the USA anymore haha. there was such a mix of so many cultures in that little airport and we were pretty delirious from sleep exhaustion. going to africa, we thought the ethiopian airport was beyond sketchy. leaving africa, we thought the ethiopian airport was a ritz carlton haha.

we spent a couple hours in ethiopia waiting for our next flight to tanzania. we flew in to kilimanjaro airport and the main concern we had was about getting into the country with our visas (because they sort of make you lie if you want to volunteer... sketchy), and just crossing our fingers that our bags made it. both things worked out fine and that was quite the relief.

the kilimanjaro airport is tiny. soooo tiny. we were told that the orphanage director (kabalo) would be meeting us and then driving us to the orphanage. as we walked out to the parking lot, there were a few people awaiting and this woman was holding a sign that said alexis and lauren. actually i'm pretty sure it said alex + laren haha. we were confused as to who this girl was and where kabalo was. but we walked up and she greeted us with a big hug and was so kind. her name was regina and she was the social worker for the orphanage home. regina took us to a car where we met a man named greg (greg owned the car) and together they drove us to the city of arusha.

we were told that the orphanage was in the city of arusha. we had a friend that had spent the previous summer volunteering in arusha and he gave us a lot of tips before we left about the city. he also told us that there was a church branch there and missionaries. that brought me soooo much comfort knowing they were there. well... after an hour drive, we drive up to really crowded market place where all these tanzanian's swarm our car. they are banging on the windows and yelling at us in swahili and we are told to get out. alexis and i just looked at each other like oh my goodness... we're about to get kidnapped haha. we step out of the car and these men are grabbing our bags and walking away with them (i'm in a slight panic mode). we follow the crowd and trying our best to keep an eye on where our bags are being taken to while every person is yelling at us in swahili and shoving this and that in our face. regina then tells us to get on this bus and that our bags will be stored underneath it.

we walk onto this crowded and hot bus and wait for regina while more people try talking to us in swahili and banging on our windows. keep in mind, alexis and i are going on 24+ hours of no sleep and we were so overwhelmed. we thought arusha was our last stop so we didn't understand why we were now getting on a bus. greg left and regina came onto the bus with us and told us that we were going to be leaving soon to meet kabalo. well in tanzania, the buses don't leave at a particular time, they leave when they are filled up. so we waited for an hour until it was filled and we finally left. we figured we would be on the bus for maybe 20 minutes? well... i think it was 2+ hours later, we are told to get off. we were now in the city of karatu, which is the city that the orphanage is in, not arusha. yeah... imagine our surprise. we are again greeted by a lot of people approaching us and trying to take our bags (later i learned that people try and carry your bags for you, so that you will pay them for that service). we then walk over to another car (aka a taxi) and are told to get in. 15 minutes later, we arrive at kabalo's house. finally... we made it. i'm definitely leaving out a lot of details but that's the gist of it.

kabalo spoke pretty good english which was comforting and he is just a pretty jolly guy. we discover that we will be staying at his home. kabalo is married to his wife adina and they had 3 month old twins, king and queen. they had a separate little room attached to their house where alexis and i would be staying in with regina.

we put our bags in our room and then went into the main house where they had dinner prepared for us. we ate some rice and goat... so i ate some rice haha. that was the first and last day that i tried the goat. definitely not for me. during that dinner kabalo talked with us about tanzania and the city and what we would be doing during our time there. he went on to tell us how dangerous it was there. and how we were not only white, but also girls so it was even more dangerous. he told us to never go out at night and that even during the day we should never walk around by ourselves. he told us about the last volunteer who was dutch and how she got one of her fingers chopped off and how we needed to be careful. he went on to tell us about the dangers of the city and it definitely, 100%, freaked me out.

after dinner alexis and i went into our room and began to unpack and make our beds. neither of us said a word as we tried to unpack at first. then we tried to make conversation. but neither of us could really talk about the day because it was so overwhelming. and as we tried to, tears gathered in our eyes and before we knew it, we both stood there, in the middle of our room, hugging and crying. alexis suggested that we say a prayer together. we stood there and as i prayed, trying, but failing, to not cry between words, we just embraced each other. it's a moment i'll never forget. we then laughed and cried some more haha.

we had forgotten to take our malaria pills so we quickly popped those in and then we heard a knock at our door. we were told that there was another volunteer living at kabalo's, a boy from australia. it was then that we met lockee. lockee is quite the character and hard to describe, but he ended up being the greatest blessing for us in tanzania. we sat outside and talked to him for a little bit. but then i began to feel nauseas and excused myself. i walked back into the room and went to the bathroom (aka... a hole in the ground). and then i threw up in that hole... lovely i know. i then walked back outside where lockee was now sitting alone. i asked where alexis had gone and he said she was around the corner throwing up haha. we quickly learned that you had to take your malaria pill on a full stomach otherwise you would throw up, without fail. lesson learned.

afterwards we asked kabalo about the internet and he gave us a stick (looks like a usb). we both were very confused... haha. well... like the idiots that we were, we didn't fully understand the internet concept. because in america, you walk into your home and you just have internet. well there, you pay for the internet like you would back in the day for minutes on your cellphone. you only get a certain amount. when you wanted the internet you get it on the stick, but only get it for a certain number of minutes. we used the internet on alexis's computer to email our families and let them know we were alive. little did we know that that would be the last time we ever got to use the internet stick...

i don't even remember how long we had been up at this point, but we were both exhausted. there were 2 sets of bunkbeds in the room and alexis and i both slept on the top (regina slept on the bottom) inside our little malaria nets, this was our new home for the next 6 weeks. even though we were exhausted, neither of us slept well that night (nor any night following). falling asleep all i could think was... "i need to get in touch with my mom so i can get on the next flight out of here"