The Kids

The hardest thing about Upendo is obviously thinking about the kids futures. There is such a slim chance that any of them will have reasonably good lives, which they all deserve so much. When I have one or a couple of the kids on my lap they are just content to sit with me, because they are just happy to have someone spend time with them and hug them and sing songs to them. It's hard not to imagine the comparison between where their lives are going now, and what would be possible for them if they were adopted by people in America. There was a volunteer here for three weeks (he just left last week), who worked at Upendo and is trying to adopt a set of twins, zendo and zevy (two year old girls). It's so exciting that they might get out of Upendo. Being at Upendo and knowing the kids makes me wish I was in a place in my life where I could adopt...but at least now I know where to come and what to do when I am ready for that.

As a side note that is a picture of me and another volunteer Niki (who left 3 weeks ago :() in the Serengeti at our campsite.

Upendo

Today I started working at Upendo Orphange. I have visited before, in the afternoons, but today I got a better feel for the daily routine for the kids. They are adorable, and it is completely heart breaking to accept the reality of their lives. At the same time though, they are so loving and run up to you and give you the biggest hugs and smiles in the world. We work with kids who are 1 year to 7 years old. The infants are in special rooms where mzungu's (white people) can't go, because they don't want the babies to get strange bacteria. After 7, the children have no where to go and become street kids.
Some of them have mental disabilities, and a few have physical ones as well. There are 2 children in particular who are terrors. They spend the entire day throwing rocks and shoes at the other kids heads. But most of the kids are sweet and just want some attention. Today Barracka sat on my lap all day. I think he's 5 or 6, and he has some sort of mental disibility, and he drools literally all the time, but he is the sweetest child in the world.
When we get to the orphange all the kids and caretakers (who are 15 year old girls who were orphans themselves) line up and we go for a walk holding hands. Then we stand in a circle and sing songs. The best song is when one kid goes in the middle and sings "sina dada, sina dada" (which means, "I have no sister, I have no sister") and then she calls someone's name and they step forward and they dance together and sing "Will you be my sister?". I will video tape it so you can see it.
Everything else is going well here, I still love it, and I know I will miss it so much when I come home. Hakuna Shida (No problems)
Love, Maggie

Tanzanian Humor

A joke told by a group of doctors at one of the other volunteers placements: This man goes into a restaurant and the waitress comes and asks him what he wants. "Eggs" "what kind of eggs? scrambled or boiled?" "both" Then the waitress came back with scrambled and boiled eggs. ...that's the end of the joke. the doctors thought it was hilarious. I haven't quite figured out what is funny to tanzanians but they definitly do not understand sarcasm. Things here are excellent as always. I'm off to buy cookies for my kids.

The Big Five

This weekend I went to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. They were both amazing, but I enjoyed the Serengeti the most. Friday night on our way to the campsite in Serengeti, we saw a leopard in a tree, and we watched it for a while and then it came down, and walked right by the car. If my window had been open I could have touched it. The same thing happened with some lions in Ngorongoro. We saw a rhino, lots of elephants, lots of buffalo, a cheetah, flamingos, ostriches, hyenas (they are HUGE), a serval cat, giraffes...basically everything. We saw the wildebeests crossing this river in the Seregeti, it was insane, they were all running like mad, and a few of them drowned/got eaten by a crocodile. My plans for this weekend are to sleep a lot. I hope you're all doing fantasically.

Maggie