A Day in the Life

Several people have asked me what a normal day for me here in Tanzania looks like. The reality is that there is no “normal” here but I thought I would record one of my days anyway. It turned out kind of crazy...

Thursday, March 24 2016 

7.00am: I wake up, pray and read from a devotional book called Battlefield of the Mind. Afterwards I write out a list of jobs for Tizo, the facilitator of one of our projects, to do today.

           

7.45am: It’s a holiday so there are no children to pick up and take to school like usual, but I go to Emburis Primary School anyway to pick up two-year-old Samweli and bring him to our daycare. On the way back I stop at Tumaini shop to buy bread for morning tea and Samweli and I go to get chapati at a local restaurant. It’s too hot and Samweli screams and jumps around the car all the way back to the daycare (not unusual, even taking the chapati out of the equation).

8.45am: Peninah, the manager of our daycare, arrives and we discuss options for the two girls in our Amani House program which helps at-risk pregnant girls and young mothers. We decide on finding a school for one of our girls so she can finish her high school education. I also talk to Olivia, our cook, about finding something different to make for lunch. She usually cooks chicken for the children on Thursdays, but because the power has been off for more than 24 hours all the chickens in the shop have gone off (although worryingly they were still for sale).

9.00am I go to the market with our driver, Mohamed, to pick up greens for lunch. When we get back Tizo is waiting to talk about his list of jobs for the day. I help him arrange to go to Monduli Juu, the village at the top of the mountain, next Tuesday to take food, water filters and to do a workshop on jewelry making.

10.00am: Lita rings and says she’s coming over to bring some lengths of fabric that need washing before they’re made into quilts at our community centre. I go home to meet her – there’s 110 metres of fabric and thankfully the power comes on shortly after she leaves so I can start the first of 10 loads in the washing machine. Jessica, my cleaning girl, arrives to clean the house and I work on finances and write a chart of loan repayments for the next hour or so.

11.00am:  I go back to the daycare in time to help out with the two to four-year-old children’s sensory playtime. Today it’s yellow play dough that I made last night. After the children have lunch and are put to bed, we send one of the nannies into Arusha to change her employer at the social security office. Every half hour I go home to switch out the washing and hang another load on the line. It’s a beautiful sunny day.

12.30pm: I find time to have a few bites of ugali and vegetable stew before I go to do my home visits. Thursday and Friday are my home visit days, but as tomorrow is a holiday I plan on doing all three today. I send Tizo to do the first of them as there is too much mud to take a motorbike and I don’t have the time or energy to drive and then climb 45 minutes up the mountain once the road ends.

1.30pm: Peninah and I write grocery lists for the daycare and Amani House. Tizo takes Olivia to buy them and I go home to pay Jessica for cleaning and do a couple of little jobs – mostly organising receipts and scanning and photocopying social security cards.

2.30pm: I head back to the daycare and wake Samweli so I can take him home by 3pm. On the way Peninah and I stop and pick up a young woman who we are interviewing for a home help position for one of our daycare families. We interview her in the car on the way to drop off Samweli as we don’t have much time.

3.00pm: We head off to our first home visit – Theresia is a young woman who recently spent five weeks in the hospital with her two month old baby Abiudi. I visited her twice daily for that month she was in hospital and have committed to visiting her at her sister’s home once a week to provide food and formula for the baby, until such a time as she can get employment. They live over half an hour away on a windy mountain road. The recent rain has washed out a lot of the road and it's a little scary to drive on. I think it will only be a couple more rains and we won’t be able to drive here again – we will have to take a motorbike. When the road ends we have to walk down the steep hill into the valley to Theresia’s house carrying the bags of food. We realize we forgot to bring some medicine that they need so I arrange to bring it on the weekend.

4.30pm: We go to the pharmacy to buy Theresia’s medicine but they don’t have any. They say they will order some and I can come pick it up tomorrow. Peninah and I head to Felista’s house for our second home visit. Felista is a young mother with a month old baby and a four-year-old. Her husband left her and ran away after he could not pay the debts he had accrued in the local community. The first time we visited her, the baby was one week old and there was not a scrap of food in the house – Felista was boiling water to give the four-year-old something to fill her tummy. They had a bed, but no mattress so were sleeping on the bare slats and were about to be evicted from their house – her rent for three months costs only 15,000 shillings (about $10NZD). We currently help her with food and charcoal for her stove. We are in the process of setting up classes at our community centre where women will be able to come and learn a trade which will help them earn money to support their families. I’m eager for Felista to take part in that program.

 5.15pm: We get back to the daycare to find a young woman, Esta, with a two-month-old baby waiting to talk to us. She says she has nowhere to live so Peninah decides to take her home with her for the weekend.

5.45pm: I drop one of our nannies and her daughter at home and then go to the market where Peninah buys vegetables and charcoal for the weekend. I wait in the car with Peninah’s four children. I’m a bit nervous about driving out to her house after getting stuck in the mud going there yesterday but she shows me a different way. I help Peninah carry the twins and groceries to the house (getting charcoal all over myself in the process). Esta refuses to go with Peninah so I take her back home with me. At our community centre we have room for emergency housing so I decide to let her stay there for the weekend. On Tuesday we will go to the village elders and police to see if they can help with her situation.

6.45pm: I get Esta settled in and run home to get some blankets and pick out some clothes, nappies and wipes for her baby. When I get back I spend some time with my friend Violeth and check on how tailor Grace is doing with making quilts. These will eventually be sold in the U.S. and the proceeds will go back into supporting our projects here.

7.30pm It’s dark when I leave the community centre and run into town for some things. I told the Amani House girls that I would bring them juice and cookies tomorrow so I go into Tumaini shop to buy ingredients. Afterwards I run across the road (almost getting hit twice by motorbikes with their lights off) to buy some roast maize on the cob. It’s been a long time since the three bites of ugali at lunchtime! I go to the post office quickly to check my mailbox and then go to one of the small bulk food shops to pay the tab from the groceries Olivia bought earlier today.

8.00pm: When I get home I find I’m not hungry after all and have a big glass of orange juice instead while watching an episode of Bones. My corn will keep until tomorrow.

9.30pm: I get a phone call from our house mother saying that there is a problem with the girls sleeping arrangements so I head back over to the community centre and sort things out. Our new girl is afraid to sleep alone so one of the others swaps beds with her so she can have a shared room.

It’s almost 10 when I get back. There’s just enough time for a quick shower and to look at today’s reading from Youth Week of Prayer before I fall into bed, exhausted. Thank goodness that it’s Friday tomorrow!

 Every day here is different. As I said before, there's no such thing as normal, but also not every day is crazy like this! You just never know what will happen. I'm learning to be flexible as I quickly realised that nothing is ever going to go quite the way that I planned it to.

xoxo,

-Hannah