tea water

I find myself, once again, packed shoulder to shoulder on a dala dala, headed out of arusha. it’s a beautiful day and we’re going with deepaul to visit the kids in maji chai (a town named after the water looking like tea). our destination is CCF, children for children’s future. this is an organization that was started by a german guy a few years back, and deepaul worked with them last year. the program finds kids, particularly boys, who are on the streets (using drugs, not going to school, headed down a bad path), and takes them in to assess how badly they want to attend school and get away from their street life. if the boys are judged to want to change, they are sent to this facility (if you can call it that, it’s basically a few buildings, on a donated piece of land, far enough from the city that the boys can’t fall back into their street life habits). the organization helps pay to put them through school and it is a place for them to learn (for the younger boys), live, eat and learn responsibility (they do their own laundry and clean their dormitories, etc). the boys range in age from 8 to 20 and there are about thirty of them total. I was asking one of the volunteers about the dynamic and she said it’s very much a big family. they give each other a hard time but are never mean, and they watch out for their “brothers”. I definitely got that vibe from the time we spent there today. they are all very happy with their living situation, and they are extremely friendly and sweet boys.

we got a tour from a few of the boys, their english is very impressive. a puppy named charlie was running around with us and despite my best efforts I caved and petted him. that puppy followed me the rest of the day. the boys thought it was funny we say ‘bunk beds’ because they call them double deckers. they also found it entertaining that we call it ‘wetting the bed’ when you pee in the bed (they were explaining to us why some of the beds were covered in plastic). they’ve got basketball hoops but no basketball, which seems a little depressing except they’re all so into futbol I don’t think they notice. it was laundry day so a bunch of the boys were helping out with that. one of the boys, an eleven year old named davis, was in the back scrubbing on some bed sheets. katie, one of the volunteers, and a nurse, had brought me back to see him after explaining that one of her boys had +3 pitting edema and an all over skin fungal infection, plus an eye infection. the story is that him and his brother were left there with a note asking if they could be cared for. the volunteers agreed to take them in (this was about a week ago) and though his brother is doing well, he has all of these opportunistic infections that suggest an immune-compromised state. katie says he’s tested HIV negative, so that is good, but doesn’t help us explain the infections. the edema was incredible. on this tiny boy who’s the size of a 6 year old despite being half a decade older than that, in addition to the dark fungus on his head and back and extremities (tinea capitis/ tinea corporis is what I was thinking, or maybe on the head black piedra- it was getting better because they had shaved his head to try to treat it). as for the edema, it was beyond +3, just these massively swollen feet, ankles and calves. davis didn’t speak english so we brought one of the boys to help us ask some questions and give us a rough translation of his answers. it didn’t sounds like the swelling was getting any better, but it also didn’t appear to be painful. you have to consider that this boy was severely malnourished when he came in, so it could have been an issue with protein deficient.. however, after a week on a good diet it should resolve, or at least begin to, and they hadn’t seen any improvement. my first thought was wuchereria bancrofti, a roundworm that causes filariasis (more commonly known as elephantiasis). infection with these nematodes can cause lymphatic obstruction by the microfilaria, which leads to lymphadentitis/the severe edema we see on his feet and legs. the vector is the mosquito and it is often seen in urban areas of africa. might just fit the bill but I don’t know for sure. I’m open to other suggestions. I told katie I’d get back to her before she takes him to the doctor again this coming week.

as amy kicked the soccer ball around with some of the boys, thu and I ventured to the kitchen. there we found two sisters, 13 and 16, the only girls at CCF aside from the mama who looks after everyone (and the two female volunteers). these girls spoke a little english, and we managed to communicate that we’d like to help with lunch. the next hour or so was us struggling to keep up with these girls as they busily prepared food for everyone (including a group of 6 volunteers that had come in for the day, and get this, two of them were the americans, tiffany and brian, we had randomly traveled to moshi with the weekend before… small place). we were making ugali and sukuma wiki (literally ‘push week’) and chicken. the chicken had been frozen somewhere, so it was a ball of several plucked chicken bodies. I couldn’t figure it out at first glance, and when I pointed and asked about these strange long things of meat they said they were the necks. mmm. t.g.i.v. (thank goodness im vegetarian :) the uglai and sukuma wiki we tried when andrew was here and I really enjoy it, so I was excited to learn to cook it today. it is very bland, and thu and amy aren’t really fans, but i will eat seconds if given the opportunity, it’s fun local finger food! we boiled a bunch of water in this ginormous pot over a wood fire and then slowly added the maize flour as we stirred. ‘not bad’ thu and I were thinking and we took turns with the four foot long wooden spoon. then more flour was added, and more, and soon the consistency was really thickening up and the girls were laughing as we struggled to stir. they’d take the spoon from us, correct the placement of our hands to hold it and get the best leverage, and then they’d just go at it, like it was nothing. so impressive. thu and I are literally crying from the smoke burning our eyes and we’re struggling to mix in the newly added flour and these teenage girls made it look effortless. we had a really good time, we were laughing and making fun of how incompetent we were, and the four of us the whole time were communicating with a mix of english and swahili words that were familiar. it was comical and fortunately, the final product was perfect, if I do say so myself. there’s something extra satisfying about eating something you’ve labored for, and we made enough to feed all forty plus people who were there. probably my favorite lunch since arriving here, and an incredible experience that I cannot believe is daily life for these young girls. oh, and naturally I taught them to lick the spoon... how american of me.

I was talking with katie later today while we watched the boys play futbol (amy and thu were in there too representing the girls… andrew had said, when we played in the village yesterday, that it was the first game of futbol he had played in tanzania where girls were allowed to play. what?!) in a big field that sits in the shadow of both mount meru and kili. she told me that a bunch of the boys were recently circumcised so they’ve been walking around a little funny lately. apparently a group of them, ages 8 to 16, were done, though they usually do it around age 8 or 9, similar to in the philippines. it’s part of becoming a man and the boys actually request it to be done. it is common place in the culture (which is wonderful because circumcision can greatly reduce the transmission of HIV), and CCF is great about sending the boys to the hospital to be circumcised, which greatly reduces complications.

on that fun note, im about to wrap up this blog entry. just wanted to say we went to dinner with a few of the canadians tonight and deep ordered warthog. I’m coming up on a decade as a vegetarian, but when odd meats present themselves I have no choice but to break my lifestyle code and give it a try. the last time I did this was in the philippines when I tried ostrich – not impressed. today I had a tiny bite of pumba (when you put it that way you feel kinda bad about it), and I must say, if I ever revert back to the way of the carnivore, I will definitely find myself some good warthog to enjoy, it was tasty! a.w.a. africa wins again :) whit, don’t judge me! hope all’s well back home, missing everyone! bye for now…