Repo Mama and Restocking the House

This is Moshi Town Center, where we ate dinner this evening.

Our first day (sunny, hot) was about getting acclimated to our new neighborhood, figuring out where things are and how things work. I had Halle, Jacob and Forrest with me and we had a list of things we wanted to accomplish. We were only partially successful. It sorted out like this:

Hooray: We started with hot showers for all six people. We took them short because we didn’t know how much hot water there would be. Seems like plenty actually.

Hooray: Everyone had breakfast, of Frosted Flakes and Parmalat Milk. We all used the one bowl, in turn.

Hooray: Our “house mama” came in the morning and introduced herself, her name’s Rebecca and her English is halting but better than my Swahili. She has 3 children ages 10, 7 and 3 who spent a long time on our porch in the afternoon playing and laughing with our kids, very cute. Her husband, Gadiely, cuts the grass of our house with a long machete. I think if Jacob could he would buy it right off of him.

Boo: We couldn’t do laundry or clean until we purchased some things that the house mama ticked off on her fingers: a mop, a broom, some “Omo” laundry soap. But she assured us we will shop for them tomorrow together.

Hooray: The ATM at the hospital gates allows us to withdraw stacks of Tanzanian shillings using our American bank card with no problem.

Hooray: We found and checked out the two nearby swimming pools, to see if either one was swimmable (both were) and what the costs were for one-time uses vs. a monthly membership. One is at the International School across the street, and the other is at the Impala Hotel down the road a bit.

Boo: I went in search of the Outreach Office but ended up waiting a long time outside two different offices neither of which was what I wanted.

Boo: We attempted to use the internet again at the A’La Mode Café but only got 15 minutes before the connection was lost, so the boys checked their email but I didn’t get on.

Hooray: We bought more groceries including familiar objects like peanut butter, jam, ramen noodles, packets of flavored oatmeal, Cadbury Drinking Chocolate, and couscous.

Boo: When we got back home, we opened the door and saw that the bed Jacob had slept in, the one we had carried from St. Andy’s house, had vanished, and so had all the dishes and cups. I didn’t know whom to talk to about it. It felt confusing.

Hooray: When we got home there were some chairs on our porch, so I sat on them and read. I was reading Greg Mortenson/ David Oliver Relin’s Three Cups of Tea (you know, that lovely man who builds schools under the noses of the Taliban in the Pakistani North West Frontier), and I discovered that Mortenson’s parents were the founders of KCMC (!) and that he had grown up right here, and that his mother had started the International School where we had just been. It was a little stunning to read something about the very place where I was sitting when I hadn’t expected there to be any connection. It’s a very wonderful book.

Hooray: We had an amazing view of Mt. Kilimanjaro all day long.

Hooray: We found how to take a dalla-dalla into town and how to taxi back home, and we found the Indo-Italiano restaurant for dinner. It was all tourists, of course, but it was quite good.

Boo: It rained quite a bit overnight and this morning, turning all the streets and paths to dark brick-colored mud.

This morning another of the house mamas came to our house when Rebecca was here, to reclaim more items that had found their way into our house by mistake (i.e. we had taken them without knowing they were supposed to be assigned elsewhere), which included sheets that we were using on our bed at the time. She was very insistent about which items were hers or belonged in other houses. I felt bad we had upset the equilibrium of things without knowing.

Rebecca and I went shopping this morning through the mud, first picking up a set of 4 teacups & saucers plus a sugar bowl from Sister Aneth at the International Office, and then into the little alley of shops just outside the main gate, where we patronized the shop of Rebecca’s friend “Mama Good.” They were very cordial to each other but each bargained fiercely over the items we purchased. We bought: a mop bucket and mop, a broom, a toilet brush, a dish rack, a frying pan, a 1-kilo package of Omo laundry soap, a set of 2 aluminum pots (like saucepans but without handles) and a flat tin plate as a lid. Total 41,000 shillings. At another shop, a new clothing iron and a loaf of bread, total 28,750 shillings. We ran into a white-coated KCMC volunteer and she mentioned to me that B10 had been recently refurbished, so perhaps that’s why it was so empty and needs new supplies. A bunch of tiny fat yellow bananas from a big wooden bowl balanced on a wizened grandmother’s head: 1000. 3 Tomatoes: 2000 from a vegetable cart. This afternoon Rebecca and I did the laundry in the big rectangular laundry sink and she hung things on the line, although it’s very much cooler and cloudy today so I think things won’t dry quickly.

We did manage to connect by mobile phone with Mr. M, the preschool principal, and he will meet us at 2 pm at the KCMC gate to discuss. He has an American volunteer there now, so she did some of the translation on the phone; this is her last week, after which, as she put it, “Good luck!”

Don and Thompson had their own adventures in their first 2 days at the hospital, which they said was like something out of a Civil War movie. More on that later, hopefully tomorrow.

PS - sorry if the last batch of comments doesn't show up - I thought I moderated and published them, but it's possible this dinosaur of a computer in the internet cafe ate them for lunch. Anyway we appreciate our followers! Love you.