Heading Out

My sister and I depart the United States tomorrow for Pommern, Tanzania, I to return to the community I grew to love two years ago and Rachel to go for the first time to a community she will very soon fall in love with herself. There may be a couple updates on the blog while we are traveling, but updates are more likely to come again once we return.

Our bags are (nearly) packed, and we were blessed with incredible generosity by our church community and other close family friends. They provided donations so we could take two extra suitcases packed full of basic medical/health supplies and a few school supplies to give to the community of Pommern, as well as some funds to pay for a portion of our trip cost.

Extra suitcases about halfway full with medical/health supplies and a few school supplies

Rachel shopping for more supplies

Me weighing our supplies so we don't fill our suitcases past the maximum weight allowed on the airplane.

All the supplies, including all the cardboard packaging we removed to save space and weight. The extra cardboard alone weighed 8.2 pounds — such a waste!

All packed up (plus the extra cardboard packaging). The suitcase on the left weighs 49.2 pounds and the one on the right weighs 49.4 pounds. The maximum allowed on the plane is 50 pounds per suitcase. We worked hard to get the right weight and spend the right amount of money!

In case you were wondering how much stuff we can fit in two suitcases, here's your answer: 176 toothbrushes, 38 tubes of toothpaste, 61 fluoride varnish kits, 3 sand timers (for teaching people how long to brush teeth), 760 acetaminophen pills, 456 junior-strength acetaminophen tablets, 840 children's-strength acetaminophen tablets, 3000 ibuprofen pills, 48 junior-strength ibuprofen tablets, 3360 aspirin pills, 1152 anti-diarrheal pills, 1070 laxative pills, 800 antacid tablets, 1708 benadryl pills, 10 tubes of hydrocortisone cream, 30 tubes of neosporin, 1200 surgical gloves, 240 surgical masks, 3600 alcohol swabs, 11 bottles of hand sanitizer, 456 gauze pads, 65 gauze rolls, 1 pair of scissors, 10 STD test kits, 1 catheterization tray, 96 pencils, 4 small pencil sharpeners, 144 pens, 24 scientific calculators, and 7 boxes of math flashcards.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

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We are traveling to Tanzania by way of London, where we will spend a frenzied day and a half doing as much sightseeing as we can. Then it's off to Dar es Salaam, the international capital of Tanzania, located on the coast of the Indian Ocean.  (The embassies are all still located in Dar as well as some government institutions, but the actual legislative capital of Tanzania moved to the city of Dodoma in 1996.)

What does it take to get to Pommern? Well, since you asked, it's a 1-hour flight to Chicago, an 8-hour flight to London, an 8.5-hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya, and a 1.25-hour flight to Dar. From there it's a 10-hour drive to Iringa on two-lane (but blessedly paved!) roads followed by a 1.5-hour drive on narrow, bumpy, mostly unpaved roads to Pommern. That's a lot of travel — and we'll do it all again in reverse when our time in Pommern is over.

So what is Pommern like? I'm glad you asked! You've had the opportunity to read lots of stories about the things we did while we were there, but what does it really look and feel like? One of my teammates said that explaining Africa to someone who has never been there is like trying to explain how your headache feels. It doesn't work very well and it isn't easy. I think that analogy is fairly accurate, but I'm going to try anyway. The following account was written while I was in Pommern in 2010.

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Pommern is beautiful and it is peaceful. The dirt is red, very red, as evidenced by the color of our shoes, socks, pants, and even shirts. Despite it being winter here, most of the trees are still full of life and leaves. There are no paved paths or roads in the village, just various widths of worn, hardened dirt paths.

If you type "Pommern, Tanzania" into Google Maps, you get nothing. But if you know the proper latitude and longitude, you get a high definition look at the village. I placed some markers on the map that can help guide you as you journey with me through Pommern. (Click to enlarge)

The mission house where we stay is humongous. It consists of two main parts (one is living space, one is storage space) with a kitchen between the two. The living space is 2-story and includes 3 bathrooms (one of which has multiple stalls), about 6 bedrooms, and a large open dining area.

The mission house; the part on the left with the bright metal roof is the living part

The dining area inside the mission house

Looking the opposite direction across the dining area

Breakfast in the mission house (photo by Amy)

Sunshower ready to be used in one of the bathrooms in the mission house. The mission house has running water, unlike most homes in Pommern, but no hot water. (photo by Amy)

Bathtub and toilet in one of the bathrooms in the mission house (photo by Amy)

Sink in one of the bathrooms in the mission house (photo by Amy)

Out back of the mission house — clothesline and a large cement area for us to put our sunshowers to heat in the sun

Heading upstairs

Open area at the top of the stairs — 4 bedrooms up here, if I remember correctly 

The bedroom where Kendra, Sonia, and I stayed.
Notice how red my white tennis shoes are in the lower lefthand corner of the picture.

Another bedroom upstairs

Mama Tony cooking in the kitchen

Leaving the mission house, if I walk straight ahead, I head downhill past cornfields and a sunflower field and two homes, usually passing chickens and once in awhile cows along the way, across an overgrown but highly utilized football (soccer) field (which is right next to a volleyball court and netball court off to the left) to the primary school, a total distance of less than half a mile.

Straight ahead, the path down to the primary school

Chickens along the way

Cow along the way (photo by Kendra)

Sunflower fields and cornfields along the way

Pommern Primary School

If instead I turn right when I leave the mission house, the path takes me by two church buildings, one newer and one old, and on to the kindergarten (kind of a combination of pre-school, daycare, and kindergarten/first grade, from my understanding — but they were on holiday when I was there before so I never saw it in action).

The older church building (photo by Kendra)

Turning left from the mission house instead, I see the carpentry right next door where people are always busy working with their hands and hand tools. I quickly pass a small store run by Dr. Godlove's wife, which is adjacent to their home. We have nicknamed this store the "7-11" and frequently buy pop from here. Immediately beyond the 7-11 is the clinic. If I turn right at the clinic, a path will take me straight to the secondary school. If I continue straight ahead, I don't walk too far before I am at the "downtown" area, consisting of several stores, a place for locals to eat, several pubs, a barber shop or two, and various other buildings.

The carpentry shop

The "7-11" — bet that wasn't what you had in mind!

The baby wellness clinic, to the left of the path

The regular clinic, to the right of the path (photo by Kendra)

The path heading off to the right, down to the secondary school

The market area in the "downtown"

If I cut through the market area to a road pretty much parallel to the one in front of the mission house, I will find the Roman Catholic supply area from where we got the boards for the secondary school kitchen. Continuing farther from the mission house on this parallel road, I would come to a place where I could turn left and travel down a path to a Roman Catholic church and a Catholic primary school supported by Italians. Here I would see other wazungu but who don't speak English any more than I speak Swahili. They are longer-term Italian volunteers, and they speak Swahili a whole lot better than we do but very little English.

Returning toward the mission house along this parallel road I would pass another store/pub that we nicknamed Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart bar, a.k.a the "quiet bar" which isn't rowdy and was suitable for our visiting to have pop or beer and watch the World Cup games that were on TV while we were there in 2010.

The "Wal-Mart"

Inside the quiet bar (photo by Amy)

Passing the "Wal-Mart" (off to the right), heading along the path back in the direction of the mission house (photo by Kendra)

A little farther down the path; homes on the left

Sitting outside on the stone bench in front of the mission house by a big tree that has lost most of its leaves (I bet it looks fabulous in the spring and summer) on a lazy (for me anyway — we aren't supposed to do our normal volunteer tasks on Saturday or Sunday, but the locals are busy) Saturday morning, the air temperature is cool (maybe 60º?) but the sun which comes and goes from behind the clouds is hot. Pommern lies about 8º south of the equator and with the first day of winter (summer in the northern hemisphere) just past, the sun is straight overhead at about 23ºN right now. If my calculations are correct, that makes the sun as direct in Pommern as in late April or early August in Iowa, though crossing from east to west across the northern sky instead of the southern one, making things feel kind of backward as the sun appears to cross from west to east to my northern hemisphere way of thinking.

A panoramic view from the steps of the storage part of the mission house. You can see the living part of the mission house on the right, the big tree I refer to and the stone bench straight ahead, the GV jeep parked, and the carpentry off to the far left. (click to enlarge)

Situated high in elevation, the air is dry and cool, and I don't miss the Iowa heat and humidity one bit! There is a saying in Iowa: If you don't like the weather, stick around 10 minutes, and it will change. A similar statement could be made about Pommern, replacing the word "weather" with the word "sky." The clouds move SO fast here. Ten minutes before I wrote this entry in my notebook, the sky was bright blue with large puffy white clouds. Now 2/3 of the sky is covered with heavy gray clouds. It won't rain much here this time of year (the rainy season is December-April), maybe just a little mist, and the sun will likely be back soon.

Though I sit journaling, the locals bustle with activity. Children walk past or play in the area in front of the mission house. Women walk by in their kanga, some carrying buckets of water on their head, some carrying a baby on their back held in place by a kanga. The people working at the carpentry are busy. People are visiting over at the 7-11. Men walk by or ride their bicycles past, some of them transporting a woman or child on the back of the bike. Edward and Mohammed and Mama Tony and Moses continue to work hard even though we are told to rest. Edward is continuing a painting job on the mission house that we started the day before. Mohammed is trying to fix a broken toilet at the mission house. (A week or so earlier, Jack had gotten locked in a bathroom and was unable to get out. In one of his escape attempts, he stood on the toilet to try to climb out the window, but it unfortunately broke beneath him. It made for a good story if nothing else!) Mama Tony is cleaning and preparing lunch. Moses never seems to rest and is always working hard on something.

Sonia, Kendra, Jack, and Amy working on the painting project the day before

The broken toilet....sorry, Jack! (photo by Amy)

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Did I mention that Pommern is beautiful? Did I mention how red the dirt is? Did I mention how nothing looks like anything you would see in the United States? With some obvious exceptions (cell phones and a few motorized vehicles), it almost feels like time-traveling, a chance to see what American life looked like 100 or 150 years ago. I am personally fascinated by the time in history during which Laura Ingalls Wilder lived, and if I squint just right, I can imagine that Pommern today and the American prairie in 1880 aren't really all that different. So that's the place I'm headed for the next three weeks.

I simply cannot wait to be there.

Walking in Pommern (photo by Amy)

Oh Baby!

On Monday of our last week in Pommern, it was Baby Wellness Day at the clinic. Once a month this special event is held so that mamas can bring their young children in for a general check-up in which the baby/toddler is weighed and given vitamins. Some also receive immunizations or are tested for HIV.

When I arrived at the baby clinic, I relieved one of the local nurse aides for a little bit and gave some sort of vitamin to each child. I had to cut off the top of a little teardrop shaped pill that had liquid in it and squeeze the six drops or so into the child's mouth. Older children also had to take a chewable vitamin. Most of them didn't like the taste of any of it, and I definitely felt like a mean old nurse force feeding them while they screamed or cried. It's hard to do something to a child that you know they don't like but you also know they need to be safe. 

I did that for a half hour or so, probably seeing 30-40 babies in that time, definitely rapid-fire pace. The children were also weighed, and their weight was recorded and graphed. Similar to other experiences I had at the clinic, I was surprised by the openness of the facility, and I was even more surprised that I could be given a task I'd never done before with only very brief instructions and be trusted to do my job well.

Sonia and Amy getting ready for baby weighing.*

Dr. Godlove talking to some of the mothers and babies;
Kendra and Sonia listen too.*

Me pushing my way through the many moms and babies to go
into the room where I would be giving the vitamins.*

That afternoon I went with Kendra to the actual clinic (the baby clinic is a separate building next door) where she was helping Nurse Patricia see, diagnose, and prescribe treatment to the regular patients. Each patient brings their own notebook when they come in, in which Dr. Godlove (or Nurse Patricia today since Dr. Godlove was busy with the baby clinic) records the patients' symptoms, the diagnosis of the problem, any lab tests that should be run, and the prescribed treatment. The treatment seems to often be Tylenol or some other basic medicine that's available over-the-counter in the States. As Patricia recorded the information in the patient's notebook, Kendra wrote important details in the log book that's kept at the clinic. I mostly just observed the process, taking a woman's blood pressure once.

Kendra with Nurse Patricia*

Among the cases we saw in less than an hour that afternoon was a 13-year-old boy of the physical size and stature of a 7-year-old. He was all skin and bones, and you could literally see his spine, ribs, etc. showing through his thin skin. Heartbreaking. Another woman (the one whose blood pressure I took) was pregnant and experiencing abdominal and pelvic pain.

Other experiences I had at the clinic throughout the three weeks I was in Pommern included a tooth extraction, a couple of circumcisions, and a birth. When the tooth extraction was finished, the man was offered his tooth but did not want it. Apparently some people who believe in some of the ancient superstitions and witchcraft do not want someone else to have a piece of their body, so the offer to allow the patient to keep his own tooth is important. They typically do circumcisions when the boys are older — 5, 7, 9 ish — as opposed to when they are born, trying to minimize the risk of infections when they are babies. Local anesthetics are used for things like the tooth extractions and circumcisions, but as for the birth, it was a completely natural birth with no painkillers, and I was shocked at how quiet the woman was through the entire process.

When we were in the clinic for those type of events, we were able to assist by handing tools to the doctor or nurse, holding the hand of a child for comfort, and so on. I had mixed feelings a lot of the time about whether we were really helping or more just in the way, but part of it too is a cultural difference where speed and efficiency aren't the most valued things.

The doctor and nurses are very careful about wearing surgical gloves and surgical masks when appropriate, and they properly sanitize the tools they use. The clinic doesn't look like any American facility though (see this entry for more pictures of the clinic), and it was important for me to set aside my expectations from home and understand that they truly do the best they can with what they have. I have to admit though, I wouldn't want to be sick in Pommern, and it makes me very thankful for the medical care available at home that I so often take for granted.

*All pictures in this entry were taken by Edward

Playing with the Children

One of our fun pastimes in Pommern was playing with the children in the village.  Playtime is universal and language barriers don't matter.  Here is a collection of pictures of us playing with the children of Pommern.

Kids coloring with Amy

A makeshift basketball game with Jack and Kendra

Video of the makeshift basketball game

Trying on my sunglasses

Coloring books

Not really a picture of "playing," but this little girl had a wig that she wore on Sundays. Too adorable! Most girls and boys both keep their hair very short to make it much easier to care for.

Sonia kicking a small ball with a couple of young boys

Right before this picture was taken, this boy was pretending his shoe was a truck and making "vroom vroom" noises. In a village where there are only a couple of vehicles, I don't know how he learned that!

No time to play -- these girls had to work.  In fact, we rarely got to play with the girls, except on Sundays, because they were busy helping their mom at home with the cleaning and cooking and water fetching.

These girls made work fun, though!

Who knew a simple bottle cap could be so much fun? This little boy and Sonia dropped the bottle cap into each other's hands, back and forth, for quite awhile.*

Taking pictures and then looking at them is fun too!*

Jack spent a LOT of time playing football (soccer) with these boys*

Bubbles that we brought from home were a fun treat*

Not a "playing" picture, but how adorable is this little guy waving good bye!*

Playing helicopter, swinging the kids around in circles*

Playing football**

Kendra and I hanging out with some of the girls on Sunday**

A traditional game involves rolling an old bike tire down the path, typically using a stick to keep it upright and moving**

There you have it -- playing with the kids in the village.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

*Indicates photo by Amy
**Indicates photo by Kendra