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| Addicting Rangoon Creeper covers front of house |
Wow, last two weeks before we leave Moshi
This week was heralded by John’s crazy trip to Seattle. He had three days on the ground with the CFAR
meeting, and 4 in the air. Lovely
really. He is not home as I write, because
his plane from Seattle to Amsterdam was fine, but the plane leaving Amsterdam
was grounded due to a gas leak and it could not be fixed. So, he will be at least four hours late. It is of course horrible to contemplate, and even with that, he may be left in Dar Es Salaam for convenience sake. (and to keep the rotation
on time back in Amsterdam.)So who knows when he will return. Oh my goodness.
Pole John. And on top
of that, we sadly leave Moshi on Saturday, so he will only be back for 6 days
before we board a plane again. And the
week will be busy sana!
But, I can say that the week was quite interesting. I have fallen in love with my Rangoon
Creeper, which is trying to creep all around the house now, and makes things
very beautiful. My friend Jackie has
been helping me identify things, so it was fun to go to her amazing house for
book club this week.
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| beautiful bountiful orchid |
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| Jackie's porch |
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| View of Mawenzi peak from Jackie's porch |
What can you say when a Masaai lady comes up to your porch
and “Hodi’s” you (hello anyone home?) ? Well, seems to me you
say, “Karibu ndani” (welcome inside) and she walks up to the porch, sits down
and proceeds to engage me in a (pathetic on my side) talk in Kiswahili about my
family, my children and grandchildren.
As always there are similarities, she has 5 children as well as me, but
she has 19 grandchildren! (I did not ask
how old her children were when they had their children!). She also, just in case I was interested, had
some Masaai jewelry that she had made, and reminded me that she would be exhibiting
at the ISM Christmas show. I had already
remembered her from last year and we again had a lovely
exchange. And though her purpose
might have been to sell me some jewelry, she was happy as well to sit and chat.
She was quite pleased in my rooster, Charlie, and even when I told her that he
was a fairly old rooster, she liked him just the same. I tried to understand her name, but it was
very Masaai, and I could not make heads or tails of it.
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| Masaai Momma on porch |
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| Masaai Momma loving my porch |
In addition to people, creatures love my porch.
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| PJ Lily |
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| This moth is bigger than a hummingbird! beautiful |
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| Adorable "njuici |
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| I think his name will be Ramses (of course I am not the owner!_) |
My week continued with a meeting with a young man from ISM who
is interested in attending Duke. He is
an amazing young man. His father had 3
wives, and he has a lot of brothers and sisters as a consequence. He had a very hard life, the father taking him as a small child to live with his father in another town, and then his father dying, and
he being moved back to his mother’s, who was not able to care for him and was quite sick, being found by a local wonderful organization that has made a
huge impact on his life. His mother has died as well, and he manages to see his
brothers and sisters, but at the same time focuses somehow very hard on academics. If he makes it to Duke, I think he would be a super catch. But, sometimes you are at a loss as to know what
to say to someone who has managed to show incredible resiliency in the face of
terrible obstacles, and the best thing to do is to kick into a little “mother”
motif, and a lot of, "What do you see yourself getting out of college". "What are your interests". "Do you know what a Liberal Arts college means?" He really wants to come to Duke, and I really
think he could make it. Gracious,
talking to this young man was inspiring. (no picture to protect confidentiality)
It was perfect on the heels of this meeting, that we had a.
the first rain in weeks, and b. our Tanzanian Regional Social Work
Meeting. Again, I took away from this
meeting, the inspiration of our young people and the dedication they have to
making a difference. It is truly a
delight to be a “woman of a certain age” and find young people so much smarter
than I ever was, and so dedicated to their work. Thank you TASWO for inspiring me again.
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| Dada Agnes Urassa, Outgoing chair of TASWO Kilimanjaro |
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| Sara Urasa, MD Director of Hospital Services KCMC speaks |
The entire crowd agreed that Sara Urasa's talk on the need for Social Workers in Hospital Settings, and the importance of Teamwork was the highlight of the day. The consensus from the attendees, More of these inspiring talks, please.
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| TASWO Kilimanjaro group |
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| TASWO Executive Committww |
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| Young people are our future |
Lest I forget, my brother Jim is now two years older than I
am. He had his birthday on the 7th!!!
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| Birthday boy in middle! Jim Watson |
And once again the week ended with a delightful day at St.
Margaret’s Church for “Family Sunday” and a brilliant playlet organized by
Clive and Bodil, and our wonderful pastor Tony playing the lead Pharisee. I got a front row seat because I was playing
recorder and spent most of my time trying not to laugh until I cried. For this last Sunday at St. Margaret’s this trip, it
was pure pleasure.
Finally, we had a lovely “hash” in Old Moshi. This area is spectacular with views and many
old old sites that make up the Old Moshitown.
You would never know that it was a town as it is spread out, and just
dabs of things here and there. The old
church where our friend Greg’s grandmother is buried is just down the way, and
the hash was located where the original Keys Hotel is located. I couldn’t take pictures because it started
pouring rain, and my little phone camera would have died immediately, but it
was spectacular.! Here are some Throwback pictures from the church with some of the German Bells...to 2009!
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| Nikoli at the bells |
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| Sylvia Wilson's grave (Greg's grandmother) |
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| Greg Emmanuel at the church |
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| The little German Church |
One more week…..sigh
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| Kibo Peak Kilimanjaro from Jean's house on the compound |
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| Kibo Peak Kili again from Jean's house across the street from me.! |
