I arrived in Uhekule during “summer” or the rainy season,
and I was often informed that “winter” begins in June. On more than one
occasion locals told me that the rains will stop on June 1st, and to
my surprise they were exactly right. May 31st it rained, June 1st
it didn’t rain, and it hasn’t since. It’s incredible how predictable the
weather can be here! I suppose it’s necessary though, since there’s no local
news or weather forecast. I am glad that they rain has stopped though, so we
can roads again instead of the muddy mess we’ve been dealing with.
The end of the rainy season means that it’s time to start
harvesting. Potatoes are the main cash crop around here, and since we need to
make our own money in order for this orphanage to become sustainable, we need
to sell potatoes. So our staff spent many a day slaving away in the shamba
(fields). I made it out to harvest potatoes a couple of times, but I am not
used to such physically laborious work that I rarely lasted more than a few
hours. Sometimes if we didn’t have enough hoes, the staff would tell me to
leave so that one of the locals could work, since they have been doing this
since they were probably about 3 years old. We were able to get some of the
orphan’s extended family members to come out and help which was a huge
blessing; however even with all of the help, our crop was still very small. We
only had 8 bags of potatoes to sell from the entire acre we planted. It’s
partly because we have bad soil, but also because we were late in planting this
year.
On a positive note, we also started planting avocado trees.
We are a part of this local avocado group within the village, and so they are
teaching us how to plant and raise the trees. In addition, they have
connections with an organization that will help to export the avocados abroad,
that is once the trees start bearing fruit in the next 3 years or so. In
addition, we are also investing in honey bees. I spent a day visiting a local
non-profit called ASH-Tech (African Soil Hives Technology). We will purchase
some of their soil hives, large cylindrical containers made of clay, in order
to raise bees and then sell the honey. We were informed that we can harvest the
honey up to 2 times annually, therefore making a 300% profit in just one year. I
don’t know the first thing about raising bees or harvesting honey, but I
supposed you learn something new every day!
In the midst of all of this work in the shamba, Bibi Kay
returned from her 2 month vacation in the USA. I was excited to take her around
the site to show her all of the work we had done and projects we had completed.
I was also very glad to have some English-speaking company once again. However,
she was only home about one week before I was off to go back to America myself!
After many weeks of consideration and prayer, I decided that I needed a little
pumzika (break) to go back and see my friends and family in the states. Plus,
my computer has recently crashed, and no one here could fix it, so the timing
worked out quite impeccably that I could go home to have my computer restored
in America. So as soon as Bibi Kay had settled in, I started the long journey
to my home country.
I left my village on a Monday to go to Njombe, I had to stay
the night there in order to catch the 6:00am bus to Dar es Salaam (the main
city in Tanzania). After the 12 hour ride, I arrived in Dar and was greeted by
two of my Tanzanian friends, Josephat and Mary. Following them through the
throngs of people, and making our way on crammed dala-dalas (city busses), we
somehow managed to get the three of us and all of my luggage safely to Mary’s home
where I had been so graciously invited to stay for the night. It was quite
interesting to experience the living conditions of the city residents, which in
comparison to the village standards were quite extravagant, but in relation to
American homes, they were still just slums. After spending the night with Mary
and her family, we spent the next day picking up a few little souvenirs and
touring around the city. It amazed me that I traveled all over the biggest city
in Tanzania and not once did I see another mzungu (white person) until I got to
the airport later that night.
After 32 hours of sitting in airports and sitting in
airplanes, I finally arrived in Portland late Thursday night (which is
technically Friday morning in Tanzania). The entire journey took me 4 days from
my village to my home. Oh the joys of living and traveling in a third-world
country! But just being able to speak English freely with my family and the
ability to reconnect with my friends was worth every minute.
