Thank goodness for House Mamas!

Thank Goodness for House Mamas!

Ekaeli, our new house mama, started today at 8 am. She worked until about 2 pm, and the house is freshly clean, clothes washed, dishes dried and put away. Today was a good day! She is very quiet and modest, but works hard, and I think really needed the work as she has come from Arusha to live with her sister-in-law to earn wages. We will pay her about $3/day, which is the salary for house workers in this part of Tanzania. It seems criminal, considering I was paying over $100 a day for Diego’s nanny, but it is the way things are here. Working at KCMC is actually a coveted job, as we hear, and once you are “in” you can probably consistently attain work with all of the residents who come and go. There are medical students from all over the world here – Germany, Holland, England, U.S. Some do research, others are here for elective rotations. There are some doctors who have worked here for 5 years, others who are here for year-long sabbaticals, and everything in between. We are “short-termers,” here for just three months. Hopefully with Ekaeli’s help around the house, I will be able to relax a little bit and start to enjoy the lifestyle here.

Yesterday, Diego and I went swimming again at the near-by Impala Hotel. It has a clean, small pool with lounge chairs. The sun is so hot, though, you spend most of your time covered up and in the shade. They make a nice vanilla milkshake, which is really just milk, banana and I’m sure loads of sugar with some vanilla (oh, and it’s warm). It has nothing to do with ice cream at all, but Diego will drink it, and he has turned his nose up at the milk they have here, so I am happy he’ll take that. He has really enjoyed watermelon today, eating nearly 2/3 of the small one I bought at the market the other day. Today, I opened up a beautiful, huge avocado (and you’ll love this…..) – it probably cost about 40 cents. It was perfectly ripe, green and scrumptious, and we’re having it with tomatoes and balsamic vinegar tonight for dinner. We don’t have an avocado tree in our yard, like other houses do, but I’ll be picking up more of those at the market next week. In our yard, we do have a passion fruit tree. Lately, the gardener has been taking the fruit (unbeknownst to me) and I can’t figure out how to extract the juice anyways. There are little juice pockets around the small seeds, and we don’t have anything that will strain the juice. Nobody likes to eat the seeds, so I can’t see how to really make use of this fruit. Maybe the gardener should just take them…..

Yesterday, our second Saturday, we took a 45 minute drive to Marangu, a town that sits at the base of Kili. It’s a small town, mostly catering to those who attempt to climb the mountain. We visited a sizeable waterfall, filled with school children laughing and playing in the crashing water, and also visited a funny little “child labor” camp (not really, but close to) where spears and other tools were being blacksmithed. A young boy crouched over a fire, fanning it, while the older men heated the iron and then molded it. We declined buying any souvenirs, even though the “authentic Masaii” spears were oh so tempting. Lastly, we visited a cave dug for the Chaaga people when they were attacked by the Masaii long ago. Now, it stands as a tourist trap, and we were trapped. It cost us $2.00 each to enter via a shaky ladder down into the tunneled earth. Diego could stand up tall in most parts of the tunnel, except a couple places where even he had to bend down. Christian and I squatted and crawled in the dirt, only to see – oh, yes I remember – nothing because it was pitch black, and the measly flashlight our guide took down wasn’t really working all that well. So, we sort of saw the dent in the tunnel where the guardsmen sat to kill any enemies, the place where the enemies bodies were laid (covered in straw as to not scare the children), and the “kitchen” which consisted of some silly replicas of kitchen tools and a counter made of dirt. Supposedly, the tunnel continued on to the river, but after I saw a bat graze Christian’s head and attach itself on the tunnel’s wall next to me, not to mention all the bugs and other creepy crawlings lingering in the depths of the earth, I quickly crawled out of that crazy foxhole and promptly told Christian that I had earned my entire 3 months stay in Africa by going down there. Diego was a bit frightened while in the tunnel, but said of the experience afterwards, that it was “cool.” His new word.

Diego is off visiting the new baby chicks that were born today at our friend Susan’s house. Everyone around here raises chickens – why, you may ask? Because you can, is often the response I get. Plus, they lay eggs you can eat. But these eggs, unfortunately, have turned into more chickens. I think Diego will love them! He misses his kitties very much, but we read the cat book often, and talk about Juggs and Sangria and how excited we are to see them, “maybe soon” as Diego puts it.

On Monday we’ll be meeting and having a traditional goat meat dinner with Dr. Bart Haynes from Duke who is leading, yes in charge of, the HIV Vaccine project in the U.S. Duke is the lab site and University of Washington is the clinical site. Do you detect the connection? (For those of you reading who do not, Christian will be doing his infectious disease fellowship at U of W, so he is VERY excited about the prospects of an HIV vaccine). This is big time stuff that he is coming all the way to Moshi to visit Dr. Bartlett and crew at KCMC. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to dine with him (though, I’ll be eating with Diego beforehand as I am not yet ready for goat meat), and Christian will be having lunch with him as well on Tuesday.

Next weekend we have a trip to Arusha, the bigger city nearby, with Travis and Meghan, the Duke 3rd year medical students who are here doing research for a year. They are very nice, and have invited us over for dinner on Saturday, as well to join them in Arusha. We will eat out on Friday night, spend the night, and then go shopping at Shop Rite, which has some great international items – things you can’t get in Moshi. We are looking forward to that trip, too!

Good news just in!!! We have accepted an offer on our house, and the closing date is set for April 19, as long as the inspection fares well, which we anticipate it will, as we did a lot of work on the house prior to selling. We are thrilled that this happened so quickly, but I must admit I had a teary day yesterday as now our time in Durham really does seem so final. Sniff. Sniff.

My adjustment proceeds slowly – pole pole – as they say here. We are all healthy and safe, which is good news, and the adjustment to this place will just take time, as everyone reassures me. I learned a nighttime phrase that I LOVE and have adopted it into my own language. It is, Lala Salama (pronounced just as it appears) and it means, more or less, “sleep safely.” I think it is beautiful. So to all of my friends afar, Lala Salama!