Hallo! Vacation has commenced! I haven’t had a chance to update you since the day before we left to Zanzibar but we have done lots of vacationing and relaxing. Zanzibar was beautiful and we both wished we could have had more than a couple days there. Stonetown is amazing with its crazy streets and hand carved doors. We stayed at St. Monicas hostel which is in an old Anglican church. The rooms are on the top floor of this super old building which has an old slave chamber in the basement. Its pretty creepy to go down there but very cool. We got lost in Stonetown for a few days. Even the Lonely Planet map couldn’t make any sense of it. Then we headed to the East Beach called Jambiani where we stayed at a really chilled out place called Kimte. It was easily our favourite spot in Tanzania. The water was so turquoise with white sand beach. There were bonfires and on the Thursday there was drumming and singing. We wished we could have had longer there but we had to catch our flight to the Netherlands on Aug 1. We headed back on the fast ferry which made me very seasick and was not worth the extra 50 mins it gives you. We spent our last day with some friends in Kigogo district of Dar and then we flew out of Africa in the middle of the night. It was a little sad to leave the place that I have spend so much time this summer but I was excited to get back to a place that would feel more like home.

I do love Europe, its true, but Amsterdam confused the hell out of us when we first got there. I’m not sure if it was because we were in shock of the extreme change in culture or that we weren’t used to navigating transit systems but our first 8 hours in Amsterdam where crazy. Because our plane left at night and arrived in the morning we were exhausted when we got there. Neither of us got very much sleep and so we were crabby. We found our way to Centraal Station and found that there was no wi-fi (like we were sure there would be) and so we couldn’t find our way to the hostel, on top of that, we had no map, no phone, no book about Amsterdam, nothing. We went to the tourist info office and so did about 200 other people, and because we didn’t want to wait in a line up for 3 hours, we decided to search for internet in other places. This proved to be difficult as there are virtually no internet cafes in the Old Centre and so we walked aimlessly around the Red Light District until finally we spotted a computer in a coffee shop (later we learned that there is internet access at most coffee shops). So we found the directions to our hostel and we were on our way. This is when things got even worse. We had no idea how to navigate the transit system. We didn’t even know which vehicle was the metro, train and tram! So basically we just guessed. We ended up buying the wrong ticket for the metro and when we got to our final destination the cards wouldn’t let us open the doors to get out of the station and we had to go all the way back to the start to buy different tickets and come all the way back. Later we learned that we could have just walked out behind somebody else.

When we finally arrived at our hostel we were very happy to be there. Our backs were killing us and we were just ready to get to sleep. The hostel is called Lucky Lake and it is about 15 mins out of Amsterdam centre. It has cabins and these tiny caravans that are so cool. We loved it so much we booked an extra 4 nights here. There is a lake and you can rent kayaks and bikes. After we had a good rest, we got up early to head back into Amsterdam and explore the city a little. It was also our objective to buy some new clothes that didn’t smell like Africa. For the day we just walked around and explored. This time we had purchased a map and were able to get around pretty well. It is funny trying to find the street you are on, on the map. We are both leaning over the map saying..,

okay, we are on spl-soop-sloopeen-seteinstine- spliestoopenstein… street. And we need to be on ga-gaan-ganeinhemutoo- tootune… street…,

Dutch is not the easiest language to get used to. Our hostel had a kitchen so we decided to save some money and cook our own dinners. We found a grocery store and tried to buy some groceries. I stood in front of a wall of cheese for probably 30 minutes trying to figure out which cheese was what. In the end I just guessed. We bought pasta and some unknown sauce. Apples were probably to only item that we didn’t have much trouble identifying. This is really when we realized we might need to purchase a Dutch phrasebook. We shopped around a bit for the rest of the day. We were trying desperately to get a hold of some friends to meet up but having no cell phone or internet made it very difficult.

By the end of the day we were tired and our feet hurt again and headed back to our hostel to make dinner. We are finally figuring out the transit system .. kind of. We are going to see a concert tonight and this will be the first time that we see what Amsterdam looks like at night.

It is raining like crazy here right now. Feels almost like an Edmonton summer. Enjoying the climate change but my nose is so cold all the time. I think I’m going to have a hard time adjusting to Canadian weather.

We have about 12 days left in the Netherlands and we are hoping to do a lot of biking around. We have plans to rent bikes in a couple days and see some sights. Right now we are just enjoying taking it easy and not rushing around too much.

Missing home and cant wait to see everyone. Hope that everyones summer is going well!! LOVE YOU

XOXO Ave and Byron

I am officially on after travels now and having a hell of time. The team finished up the project with SIHA Day which was an amazing success. We had a soccer tourny with a team from each primary school and also a game against two village teams. Then we had speeches and preformances from all the village leaders as well as many groups from within Veyula doing traditional dance and drumming. After the preformances we had everyone to a big hall for a catered lunch of… you guessed it… rice and beans. We had some new mamas cook for us and it was delicious! We will definitely be hiring them to cook for the team next year. After lunch, PSI sent a cultural dance group to preform for the village and everyone went crazy over them! They stayed for about an hour over their scheduled time because the villagers just didnt want them to stop dancing. Once the sun set, PSI set up a bug movie screen and played tons of music videos and a Tanzanian comedy show. Everyone had such a fun time but we were busy for over 12 hours on SIHA Day so we were all exhaused when the day was over. Unfortunatley, we were heading back to Dar es Salaam the next day and (as always) I had yet to finish packing. I ended up being up until 2:00 am trying to stuff all my things into one bag. I was impressed with myself because I arrived with three bags and was leaving with only one. Usually when I travel its the other way around.

The next day we got on the bus at 9:30 am and were back in Dar arounf 5:00pm. We said a teary goodbye to Dennis, our translator (who had conveniently scheduled a trip to Dar at the same time as us. I think it was because he was so sad to say goodbye) and got a taxi to the ferry which would take us across the ocean to Kipepeo beach, where we had decided to do debrief. Myself and Jess and Jarret checked in for the night and relaxed. The next day, Byron and his team arrived in the evening and I was the happiest girl in the world. I missed him so much and I am happy that I never have to be away from him for that long again :)

Debrief only lasted for one day. We just discussed what goals we reached during our projects and which we did not. We decided not to talk to much about next years projects becuase we were afraid that a few people migh disagree and there is no point in fighting now… might as well save that for when we return to Canada. Once we finished our debrief we relaxed on the beach for a bit, enjoyed the turquiose water and white sand and packed up for the next day. The day after we departed to Arusha to start our safari!

The bus ride was brutal, to say th least. It was hot and humid and 12 hours long. Bus rides like that should be required to have air conditioning! Once we arrived in Arusha, we were relieved of the heat because it was a nice and cool climate. Felt alot like Edmonton summer actually. Warm in the day and cold at night. We spent the night at the Meru Inn and at 6:00am the next day we hopped in our land rover with Bakhari, our tour guide, and headed for our campsite at Lake Manyara. We climbed up mount meru and arrived at our campsite, which was very nice, with tents that were already set up and a nice place to eat dinner. After we put all our stuff in the tents we headed to Lake Manyara national park to begin the safari. When we got there, Bakhari raised the roof off our vehicle, so we could stand and watch animals the whole time while he drove around. Byron and I basically stood up in the truck for the whole time (about 5 or 6 hours). That first day was amazing! We saw elephants and monkeys and baboons and giraffes and hippos and zebra. Sometimes the animals were so close to the truck that we could almost touch them. The weather was beautiful and we could barely take in everything around us. We returned to the campsite for the evening and watched some traditional dancing from a tribe in Arusha. The dancing was completely different from what was in Veyula, so it was very cool to watch. We ate our first meal with our cook, Jacob, that night as well. It was absolutely delicious. I was amazed that Tanzanian food could taste sooo good!

The next morning we left the site at about 6:00 am and headed for the Serengeti. It took about four hours to arrive but we were pleasently suprised to find out that we would actually be camping at our camping safari! As soon as we entered the park, we saw two cheetas just chilling out on a rock in the middle of the plains. We drove on for awhile and when we arrived at the Dik-Dik campsite, right in the heart of the Serengeti, and we set up our tents and threw our bags in them and headed out right away. It was about 5:00 pm when we started our tour and it proved to be a great time to see animals. In the first half hour we saw a group of lions feeding on a waterbuffalo, cubs wrestling with eachother and all. We also had the amazing experience of seeing a leopard hunting a gazelle. Unfortunately, she didn’t catch him (earlier in the evening, we saw that she had already caught one and it was hanging up in the tree where she was relaxing) but seeing the chase was pretty incredible. Bakhari said it was the best leopard sighting he’d seen in his whole 10 years of guiding. Once we saw the beautiful sun set of the Serengeti, we headed back to our campsite for dinner. Again the food was delicious,but I was exhaused from the day of travel and animal watching and climbed into bed as soon as I could. This was the beginning of Byron and my night from hell. At about 12:30am I was awoke by the feeling of a brutal pinch on my chest. Then, on my arm, and other arm and foot and face. After I had pulled about eight ants off my body, I decided that I had to get out of the tent and shake myself off. I woke up Byron, who also began to feel bites all over him and we quickly got up to leave. I took my headlamp anf shone it out to find out shoes, which were covered (I mean covered) in ants. I grabbed both ourshoes and hucked them down hard, hoping to knock them off but when I stepped on the ground in my socked feet I could feel about 50 ants climbing up my legs from my feet. I quickly ran to the nearest chair, which was still set up from dinner and attempted to rid myself of ants. The little buggers were invincible. I couldnt kill them, I couldnt even knock them off me. Byron, by this time, has also taken a position on another chair and is also trying to rid himself of ants. Afetr about 15 minutes, I was almost ant free and so I shone the lamp at the ground to see what the hell was going on. It was clear that our tent was sitting, if not right on top, right beside a giant red ant hill. The ground looked like it was moving in ever direction and Byron and I knew there was no way we could go back into that tent at that point. After awhile of contemplating what to do next, we decided it would be best to get Bakhari to help us out and Byron had to run bare foot to the safari truck and get him at about 1:30 am. He was really our saviour of the night. Like a real trooper he stomped over to our tent, lifted it up and moved it to another area of the campsite. All the while this is happening, I am still standing on a chair quietly cursing every minute or so when another ant bit me. Once the tent was moved, I could strip my clothes (and strip I did) and find all the sneaky ants that were located in my pants and shirt and a few in my hair. After I was ant free, Byron and I did a comlpete inspection of the tent and killed about 100 ants on the floor, in the blanket and on the matts. Once we were satified with the tent, it was about 3:30 am and the temperature had dropped to about 10 degrees. Because all our bags had ants in them, or cold weather clothes were un usable and we had only our thin sleep sheets to keep us warm. I was so cold that I couldnt sleep a wink. I think that whole night I may have gotten one hour of sleep. The next morning I was tired and crabby, which made for not such a wonderful morning but the sunrise was beautiful and I was happy to see it. I wasn’t feeling so great after a couple hours and headed back for a quick nap before packing up and heading off to Ngorongoro.

It was only a few hours drive to the campsite in Ngorongoro and it was much colder even from the previous night. Thankfully, they had a campfire and I was able to warm up before going to bed that night. At this campsite there were a few wild elephants living there and they werent always so friendly. There were two ment that wandered the camp with fully automatic weapons incase some mzungu pissed off the elephants (the gun was for the elephant, not for the mzungu.. just to clarify). We set up camp and stayed for the evening. No ant problem that night and I was able to dawn mitts and a hat so I was toasty warm all night. The next morning we were up super early again for a tour of the crater. If you dont know anything about the Ngorongoro crater, I would suggest looking it up! It is very cool and I would explain all about it if I had the time. There were tons of animals and we got the chance to see a male lion, which we hadn’t seen in the Serengeti. We also so a whole bunch of wildabeasts and zebras. We tried so hard to find a rhino but, because it was a cold, windy day, they were all hiding. Because there are only about 25 rhinos in the whole crater, it is very unusual to see one. At the end of our tour I had taked over 400 pictures and a bunch of videos, which I cant wait to share with all of you. I was exhaused from the busy days of animal watching but I could definitley done a longer safari. It was really fun getting to camp. It felt like camping in Canada because it was so damn cold at night! Yesterday we returned to Arusha and spent another night at Meru Inn. This morning we were off on the bus to Dar at 7:00 and it was just as brutal a ride as the first one. Possibly hotter.

Byron and I are spending the night in Dar here at the Jambo Inn. After a little hitch in our booking we got a room and will be on our way to Zanzibar tomorrow afternoon. We look forward to a few days of sleeping in after our busy safari. The beach is going to be a real treat for a few days and then we’ll be off to Amsterdam. I am having a blast on vacation but I am still looking forward to coming home. Three months is such a long time. Miss you all and hopefully I can update you more often now that we are back in big cities.

Byron says hello to everyone! We miss you tons and hope everything is going well in Edmonton. We will see you all soon.

xoxox Ave.

So, the first half of the adventure is now fully coming to a close. We have but one day remaining in village and now that it’s all over, I’m going to be a little sad to leave. Not THAT sad, because I really miss Byron a lot, and also because I am now in excited for vacation mode but the friends that we’ve mad here and the kids and Dennis, I am definitely going to miss. There are so many things that I’ll never forget about Veyula and the difficult but amazing experience that I had here. It was not easy, I have to admit, but it feels really great to meet my goal and see the hard work that we have all put into this project making a difference. Although we are just univeristy students with not much money, we did our best to help out Veyula in all the ways that we could offer. I’m happy to announce that after a little discussion with the village leaders, the TZ government has agreed to pay for 20 000 000/ TSH of our proposed dispensary. This is great news, as there will be enough capital for the project to get underway (hopefully) before the 2011 team returns to Veyula next May. SIHA is going to work hard to raise equal to what the government has offered and the people of the village have agreed to contribute whatever is left over. The people here really deserve to have a proper health centre and I am so happy that SIHA can help get it all underway :)

Tomorrow is SIHA’s big day in Veyula. Thursday, July 15 marks Veyula’s first annual SIHA Day! Tomorrow will be extremely busy for everyone, starting at 9:00am. There will be a few soccer matches that will take place, with the winners awarded with a soccer ball donated by one of our teammates old high school. Then we will have traditional drumming, dance and singing from every street in Veyula, as well as groups from all the schools. At about 2:00pm we are hosting a big lunch for all the performers and for our honored guests. At 4:00pm, PSI will be coming down to Veyula to do a drama, show a film about HIV and then host a disco for all the villagers. It is going to be a crazy day but it will be a super fun finale to our project here. I know everyone is going to enjoy it. We also have made 100 SIHA Day t-shirts to hand out to the performers and village leaders. SIHA will stay in Veyula all year that way.

On Friday morning, our team will be catching a bus to Dar es Salaam and heading to Sunrise Beach for debrief. Mostly, we will just be describing each teams project and what they did and didn’t do this year. We want to talk about what we could have done better and what will be the goals for next years teams. We also are hoping to open a new project for next year, hopefully in the Dodoma region. I doubt that we will drag debrief on too much, as I know everyone is eager to get onto their after travels. Me included. On Monday, Byron and I are going to a water part in the North of Dar and staying the night in that region. Tuesday, we will explore Dar a bit, check out a museum and maybe catch a movie (something that I miss very much). Then, Wednesday we depart from Dar to Arusha for a five day safari! When we get back from Arusha, we will head to Zanzibar for five days and visit Stonetown as well as hit the beach for a few more days. On Aug 1, we fly out of Dar to Amsterdam to stay for two weeks. We are hoping to rent some bikes and take a week and a half ride around The Netherlands.

I’m not sure the next time I’ll get a chance to post, but I will try hard not to make it too long. Hopefully I can let you know how we are doing after we have got back from our safari!

Love you and miss you all very much. The hard part is over for me, so I know that I will be back in Canada in no time. Time will fly, as it always does on vacation. Hope everything is well at home.

xoxoAve.

Mambo! So, as is evident by the title of this blog there are ONLY 6 DAYS LEFT! AH! I am so excited I can barely contain myself.

Everything is going well in Veyula and we were able to see a layout for the dispensary today. Hopefully we can get the show on the road in the next few months. There will definitely be a lot of money left over from this year’s project so that next years team will be able to do a lot of the funding next summer.  This week we visited the last primary school in the Veyula area called Macutupora Primary. It have many children that come mostly from the military base and from outlying areas of the village. We did a safe water and malaria seminar as well as another pad distribution to a group of standard 5,6 and 7’s. We also had a few nets leftover from village net sales, so we hauled them over to Macutupora and they were all gone in about five minutes. I felt a little bad because not everyone that wanted one, got one. Next year we promised to have the team to their first net sale there so that everyone can have one. We also had a chance to do a mama and baby seminar in the village today, which went pretty well. About 30 mamas showed up, which was a lot more than we expected because the planning was a bit last minute. All their babies were so cute and I was amazed at how young some of the kids are that are already walking! I guess when you have a rock/dirt floor, crawling is not very comfortable and you just have to learn quickly. But it is amazing to see how similar babies are in Veyula to babies in Canada. They make the same noises and cries. Even their facial expressions and mannerisms are the same. Shows you that we are not so different from one another on a basic level!

We went a whole week without water again. It is really getting ridiculous. I don’t know how these people can live in these conditions all year round. Because there was no water, they had to haul cooking water from the Mission to our guest house. Guest what they used to haul the water? GAS CANS! I’m serious. They didn’t even wash them out because our rice tasted like petrol. Don’t worry, we didn’t eat it but what a waste of food. Thankfully, the water finally came back on yesterday for a few hours and I had enough time to wash my clothes (which were getting very stinky). Unfortunately, in the 2 hours it takes to wash my clothes (because I have to do it by hand in a bucket) the water turned off again and I missed a shower. Luckily, I had foreseen that this might be an issue and filled a 1.5 L water bottle and was able to at least rinse myself with that. The water is back off again and I’m not sure if I’ll get a proper shower until I am back in Dar es Salaam next Saturday. I pity the person who is assigned to the seat next to me on the eight hour bus ride to the coast.

Oh no! Sorry for the short post but I see I only have four minutes left until the computer will shut me off! Miss you and love you all! MUAH!

xoxoAve

Hello my dears. So I have heard that my blog is getting progressively more depressing. I do apologize for that. I’m not feeling depressed so do not worry. I guess last week was my worst week so far and it showed through my blog. Things are better now, however, I am feeling a lot better. I have gotten over my cold and the water is … well of and on so it’s was a pretty good week this week.

On Monday we planned to have a bed net sale for Veyula village, but that was postponed because we had no water to dip the nets in ngao. So, we had a nice relaxing day, I have been reading The Adventures of Augie March, which is very entertaining so it was nice to have a little break from work. Tuesday we set up at the primary school and dipped about 200 nets. Because we had so many left, we decided to extend the sale to Wednesday as well and the turn out was much better. In about 8 hours we dipped over 500 nets. I was absolutely exhausted after that, mostly because the temperature was pushing 40 degrees and we were right in the hot sun all day. I had a very good sleep that night, that is for sure! The next day my whole body was sore from dipping nets but we had a seminar for girls planned and we couldn’t miss it. We gathered at the secondary school with a female teacher and got about 45 girls together. We had seen that in seminars about HIV, and STI’s the girls were not asking any questions, only the boys. We figured this must be because they were embarrassed to ask in front of the boys. Not so different from in Canada, I might add. So our solution was to get only girls together, to see if we could answer some questions that they might have. It was also a good time to distribute some of the reusable pads that we had made for the girls back in Canada. Once we started the seminar, we showed them the pads and how to use them. We were surprised to find out that the girls new very little about their anatomy, how one gets pregnant and why they have a period. So we got a chance to give them a quick lesson about female reproduction and they seemed to learn a lot. Then we asked if they had any questions, but got a very few girls raising their hands. We were skeptical that they had no questions, so we decided to hand out paper and pens for them to write their questions down. Turns out, every single girl had a question and we spent almost 2 hours answering them all. It was great. We were so happy with the way it turned out that we are hoping to get another group of girls in again next week. They really need some attention. No wonder these girls are getting pregnant at 14 years old, they know almost nothing about sexual health.

We also got a chance to do a TB seminar to a group of villagers who have TB presently. There were only about 10 of them, but its often nice to have a small group. Unfortunately, I think they were hoping that we could provide them with free medication or something along those lines, and obviously because we are not doctors we could not do that. We hope that as soon as we can get the building of the dispensary going, they can get the treatment they need. If only we could help everyone.

Today, we were supposed to visit a new village called Bahi on the opposite side of Dodoma from Veyula. We are hoping that next year the Veyula team will be able to do a month or so of seminars in Bahi. Unfortunately, our plans got messed up because our PSI agent, Salum, got stuck in Dar es Salaam and he couldn’t take us. We decided to do our regular Saturday on Friday instead so that we are free to visit Bahi tomorrow when Salum is back in Dodoma.

The next couple of weeks are going to by busy busy busy. We have SIHA Day planned for July 15 and we are hoping to have some fun events planned for the people of Veyula. PSI has offered to come and show a movie and then set up an out door disco for the evening, which should be a really fun. We are also hoping to have some games, a soccer tournament and the Village Chair Person has told us that a group of traditional dancers is making a dance and song about SIHA. I’ll make sure that I record it so you all can see. We also hope to do a few village seminars about HIV and distribute the condoms that we have left over. We might also do a Safe Sex Run around the bars in Veyula, handing out condoms to all the patrons and leaving a free box for the bar or the hotel. The last thing we hope to aheive is to assmble a group of mama’s and babies to give a maternal health seminar. We want to give them all bed nets and hopefully off them some advice on how to care for themselves while pregnant and when they have small children.

We only have about 13 days left of project and that is including SIHA Day so the clock is ticking down very fast. I am excited to wrap things up in Veyula and go on a nice vacation but there are definitely some things I will miss about my village (yea, my village). I can’t wait to share all my great stories and photos with you! This is my second last Saturday in Dodoma and after that, I’m not sure how often I’ll be on the internet. I’ll definitely update you after my five day safari and before I take off for Europe.

Anyways, my weekly pizza meal is beckoning me so I’m off to the pizzaria! Hope all is well. Missing you guys TONS!

LOVE Ave.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. We did have water to drink. Clean water. What I mean, really, is that Veyula Inn and its patrons went from Sunday to Thursday without any running water. I was a terribly unhappy week for all involved. Mostly, we were stinky and crabby and very, very homesick. But how did you wash yourself, you might ask? Well, friends, I imagine I washed just as a crack addict might do. Just once, and with a water bottle. Classy, I know. Also, the baby wipes that my mother suggested I take with me came in very handy. You see, it might not have been so bad either but it was extraordinarily windy in Veyula this week and you couldn’t go outside for a minute without being caked with dirt and whatever was mixed in with that dirt.

On top of that, I got sick for the first time, not just once, but twice this week. I missed three whole days of work. First with a nasty cold, which I am still sniffly from and second, I suspect, from some bad pork. Needless to say, it was not the best week I’ve had. I even venture to say that is was the worst. Okay, it really was the worst. I was thinking about home a lot this week.

The food has also gotten worse, if you can believe it. I’m not sure if our cooks are just getting more lazy or what is going on, but it’s very unfortunate. Looking forward to a good home cooked meal.

Now that you’ve heard the worst of it, I can update you on what I did this week with the project, which in not very much, because I was bed ridden most of the days. We had a chance to finish up seminars in the new primary school I mentioned before. We did mostly malaria, but also some safe water and HIV. On Wednesday, we met with the Village Executive Officer, the Village Chairperson as well as the village council. Our meeting was in regards to the building of a dispensary in Veyula village. Mostly, the council expressed their happiness that there would finally be a place where their people could seek medical care. One woman described an incident that has happen just two nights before, where a young woman delivered her baby at home and because there was not the proper medical attention, her poor baby died by the morning. She made clear that is was not an unusual case. The other councilors expressed to us that we were very welcome to be there and they were proud of us and what we were doing. They said that they hoped that our dreams for Veyula would come true and they would help us make it happen. The Village Chairperson decided to take on the main responsibility of the project because he is an elected representative of the people. I was happy for this choice, as I trust this man and I know he is really excited about the project. He has written a proposal for the District Medical Officer and has all the signatures of the Councilors. Now, the DMO will be able to give him blueprints for the dispensary and also a budget. Soon, SIHA will know how much we must raise for the project and how to get the ball rolling. Our team is crazy with excitement about this project. The Village Chairperson has told us that the dispensary will be named after SIHA and will have all our names engraved on the front of it, as we are the founders. I have promised to return in the future to see the finished dispensary. The Ward Executive Officer has just texted me requesting a meeting, so I am assuming they have the blueprints now and we will hopefully see them very soon!

On Thursday afternoon, I was feeling better from my cold and decided that I would join Crystal on a run down our normal path. After a about five minutes we reached a house with many children and as they spotted us come toward them, one little boy come racing over with a stick, some string attached (almost like a fishing rod) and on the end of it there is a little mouse just dangling there. At first Crystal and I thought it was a dead mouse and were thoroughly disgusted. But then the boy came to a screeching halt in front of us, put the mouse on the ground in front of us and we realized that is poor mouse (whose tail was tied to this boys stick) was still alive. The boy began to shake the stick in attempt to get the mouse to start running, but the mouse was terrified (as you might imagine) and was frozen. So, a little annoyed, the boy began to kick the mouse along as he ran with us. The mouse, feeling the boot from behind, would run for about 30 cm and then go still again. So it went that the boy would kick the mouse and run with him for two seconds, then kick it again and repeat. It was a little disturbing to see but the boy was so funny, we had to laugh. He was so proud of his little mouse and just wanted us to see what it could do. Just one more moment I’ll never forget.

Well, one more week has gone by. I’m missing home and Byron a lot. I’m counting the days until vacation, which I desperately need. Only 18 left! I’m in the teens now, so that in encouraging. Miss you all and hope all is well with you. Been thinking about that lake party a lot, so I’m hoping you’ve all taken that weekend (Aug 20-22) off and are prepared for an excellent party. LOVE YA!

xoxo AVE

Mambo. So, I am one happy girl this weekend as Byron had the chance to come up to Dodoma for the weekend. I met him at the bus station last night and took him for chinese food at the New Dodoma Hotel. It was a delicious feast, but sadly we wasted a lot of food because our eyes are evidently bigger than our stomachs. We found a nice hotel for only 25 000/ per night including breakfast (you actually get to choose how they cook your eggs. This is luxury man). It also has TV! I have watch some news for the first time in about 6 and a half weeks. Needless to say, I was very happy. Today we are just planning on wandering around the city. I will bring Byron from ice cream and of course we will feast on pizza tonight at the Leone’s L’Africano Pizzeria. I don’t think Byron even understands how awesome the food is. He is in for treat. We’ll be saying goodbye tomorrow around 11:00am. He’ll head back to Lugoba for another 3 weeks to finish up the project. Soon enough we’ll be off on vacation together. Very excited.

The project is still busy busy. This week we searched out prospects for new seminar venues. We visited two primary schools in the area and plan on returning next week to start seminars for the kids. We also visited Mchemwa for a village seminar…well, some of the team did. Unfortunately, in Africa, the bicycles are not very reliable and I got about 45 minutes into the ride and my tire burst. Since there was still another good 30 minutes left of the ride, I had to walk my bike all the way back to Veyula (an hour and a half later). I had given my backpack to Dennis to carry because it had some seminar materials in it. It also had my sunscreen in it. So, I got nice and burned on my face, neck, arms and legs. I also got blisters on the bottom of my feet. It was not the most fun day.

On Wednesday, our team had the opportunity to attend a village meeting. The first since we had arrived in May. We introduced ourselves to the community in Swahili (very unfortunate Swahili) and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The Ward Executive Officer was very proud of us and said he was very happy to hear us speak in Swahili. He wouldn’t stop shaking our hands.

I have some very cool news! SIHA was very excited to find out this week that there is a possibility that we will be building a dispensary in Veyula! This is very exciting news because presently, the only medical care that is available in Veyula is a small mission dispensary run my nuns with very little medical training. This dispensary will be equipped with doctors and proper equipment for treating the sick. This will greatly improve the lives of people who are HIV+ in Veyula and now they will not have to travel to Dodoma for ARVs. Also, malaria and typhoid will be properly diagnosed in our facility, hopefully saving the lives of many children in the area. We are still hashing out the details with the Village Executive Officer and the District Medical Officer but we are pretty sure this thing will happen. Hopefully, by the time we leave, we will have a plan set in stone for the construction of SIHA Dispensary.

Running out of time now! Hope all is well. Miss you much <3

xoxox Ave

Well, it’s been a pretty busy week. We have been doing lots of work in the secondary school here in Veyula. We have delivered almost all the classes a malaria and HIV seminar. These kids are between 15-24 years old, so they have a lot more questions to ask us than the primary school kids. Our seminars have turned out to be almost double the length because of all the questions we are asked. Luckily, the questions are pretty basic, so we have been able to give accurate answers. Mostly questions like, “how can you know if a condom will really protect you from HIV” which we answer by drawing a picture of a water molecule and an HIV virus (which is MUCH larger), filling a condom up with water to show that if a tiny water molecule cannot pass through a condom then a huge HIV virus would not be able to.Unfortunately, the school won’t let us hand out condoms (even though the kids ask for them). Our translator Dennis has taken a couple boxes to his house to hand out in secret.

Yesterday, SIHA held its first bed-net sale of the project. We set up at Veyula Primary School and decided that we would only sell to the children this time and villagers next time (if the sale was successful). We had decided that a cost sharing program would be more affective than just giving them away, so we decided to charge 2000/Tsh for one large bed net instead of the 6000/ that they regularly cost at a shop. We were a little worried about how it would turn out but I am happy to report that my team sold over 300 bed-nets to children of the primary school. We also made sure that each and every one was dipped for the children before they left. It was crazy! I must have dipped over 70 bed-nets in less than 3 hours. By the end, I had a little helper who would pour the water and mix the binding agent and ngao (insecticide) and even help be shove it back into the bag. He was awesome. I was sad to hear that he couldn’t afford to buy one, but the team decided that it would be appropriate to give him a bed-net as payment for the help that he gave us all day. I wish you could have seen his face. He was so happy. Because of the success of the sale, we are going to use the money that we made to purchase another batch of nets to sell to the community. We are planning to hold another sale in the market in a couple weeks.

Needless to say, I am feeling exhausted! I need to sleep almost 9 hours a night to be able to function. I often take a short nap after seminars, also. I am really looking forward to my vacation in 34 days! I have a five day safari planned, five days in Zanzibar and then off to Holland. Byron and I have decided to take bikes around the country for the first week and spend the second week hanging around Amsterdam. I heard Amsterdam has a very good cheese market. You have no idea how excited that makes me. Byron is coming to visit me up here in Dodoma next weekend, which I am very much looking forward to! After that, it’s the homestretch till the end!

Time for some comic relief: Yesterday, we were taking a walk in the market to find something that resembled a samosa (which we were unable to find, but it was worth a try). As we were making our way back to the guest house we noticed some young kids peeking their heads around the corner of a shop. Their faces were all covered in this dirt/powder, and it made them look sort of like ghosts. Then, we heard some little voices saying “mimi ni mzungu” which means “I’m a white person.” We almost peed our pants laughing. These children (maybe 3-5 years old) had rubbed their faces in dirt, in attempt to look white, like us. It was hilarious. I tried to get a picture of them but every time I came towards them, they would run away, thinking that we were playing the chasing game. This is a game that the children of Veyula are very fond of. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day.

Well, It’s time for me to head to our favorite spot, this big rock we have found in Dodoma. It is conveniently located by a place where you can buy real pizza! Oh, did I mention we found pizza?! Greatest day of my life. We have vowed to return there every Saturday for a little taste of heaven :)

Hope everything is well in Canada. Miss you all very much…still counting the days. Three months in much to long to be away!

xoxo Ave.

Everyday my team and I talk about food for about an hour. This is my personal list of things I am going to eat in the first couple weeks back in Canada:

Starbucks vanilla latte (venti) Pizza 73 Extra cheesy nachos Fettuccini Alfredo baked with cheese Mums taco soup (yumm) Buns with real butter Steamed broccoli with cheese Dill pickle chips Dill pickles Two cheeseburger meal from mcdonald’s Garlic mashed potatoes (Uncle Chris’ or Uncle Tony’s will do) Asparagus with melted butter Pecan mudslide Mushrooms of all shapes and sizes Ceaser salad Bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese Padmanadi Grilled cheese sandwhich Cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing Chicken nuggets Rootbeer milk shake Perogies with sourcream Dawat Indian buffet Garlic bread Cherry cheese cake An entire block of cheese (any kind will do) Any kind of corn that’s not dried and make into corn flour BBQ fish Peas Spinach dip Gala apples Blueberries Chocolate milk Iced Cap Sushi Auntie Carrie’s nacho chip dip Orange juice Eggs Benedict French toast Sweet potato fries Blue plate mac and cheese Any/all baking done my my talented sister Rebecca (I know Byron would love chocolate cupcakes) Sicillian past kitchen mussels

And last but not least…

A hot, home cooked meal with my fam (seriously, not that picky, but no rice, please)

So, you are all welcome to join me in my quest to eat all these things. I’d sure love the company while I’m stuffing my face. Also, I’m open to anyother suggestions you may have.

Everyday my team and I talk about food for about an hour. This is my personal list of things I am going to eat in the first couple weeks back in Canada:

Starbucks vanilla latte (venti) Pizza 73 Extra cheesy nachos Fettuccini Alfredo baked with cheese Mums taco soup (yumm) Buns with real butter Steamed broccoli with cheese Dill pickle chips Dill pickles Two cheeseburger meal from mcdonald’s Garlic mashed potatoes (Uncle Chris’ or Uncle Tony’s will do) Asparagus with melted butter Pecan mudslide Mushrooms of all shapes and sizes Ceaser salad Bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese Padmanadi Grilled cheese sandwhich Cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing Chicken nuggets Rootbeer milk shake Perogies with sourcream Dawat Indian buffet Garlic bread Cherry cheese cake An entire block of cheese (any kind will do) Any kind of corn that’s not dried and make into corn flour BBQ fish Peas Spinach dip Gala apples Blueberries Chocolate milk Iced Cap Sushi Auntie Carrie’s nacho chip dip Orange juice Eggs Benedict French toast Sweet potato fries Blue plate mac and cheese Any/all baking done my my talented sister Rebecca (I know Byron would love chocolate cupcakes) Sicillian past kitchen mussels

And last but not least…

A hot, home cooked meal with my fam (seriously, not that picky, but no rice, please)

So, you are all welcome to join me in my quest to eat all these things. I’d sure love the company while I’m stuffing my face. Also, I’m open to anyother suggestions you may have.