The Babies are so Cute!

Hi all, tomorrow morning I am heading out to the bush, we are splitting into two teams for the next week and trying to get to as many health facilities as possible. I will be staying overnight in some village, as it’s too far to drive back in one day. I am getting to know Mwanza better and I still can’t believe it’s the second largest city in Tanzania…it’s just not big at all! We have had our first illness of the group, Dawn came down with a high fever and GI issues, but she seems to be recovering quickly with the help of her antibiotics that she came prepared with. We are being very careful about what we eat and drink, but sometimes there is only so much one can do.
I have to gush for a minute about how sweet Jeremy is, as I have unpacked my bags more and more or started new books, I continue to find sweet cards that Jeremy somehow managed to hide throughout my luggage. I think I have found three cards, all at separate times, and I it makes me so happy! My Tanzanian mother brought me to her home, as she wanted me to see it to see if Jeremy and I want to get married there. I also somehow ended up having to speak at a SDA church service in front of about 300 people. It was very uncomfortable, but amusing at the same time. Karen is SDA and we picked up one of our counterparts from her church on Saturday before heading out to the field and Karen wanted to see an SDA church here, and the next thing we knew the preacher had us up at the pulpit introducing ourselves to everyone. I am keeping my blog short tonight as we are heading out very early tomorrow and I have to get to bed, but today, being Sunday, we did finally have sometime for leisure. I think Adam and I managed to hit up every spot in town…we walked around everywhere with a Tanzanian man that Suzanne introduced us to, and we ended up taking a boat ride on Lake Victoria to a small Island. The Island was weird. Well, actually, it was beautiful. It was so scenic, but the weird part was the lion and the hyena in a cage. There were antelope running wild, and then the two caged animals. Of course their cages were sad and pathetic, I felt so badly for them. I think the island originally was meant to be a tourist attraction and from what I understood there used to be a lot of animals that were brought there, but apparently they all died. Apart from that sad part of the story, the island was great. The boat was a little subpar, but I don’t want to go into too much detail or else I might upset my mother…..come to think of it, probably my mother-in-law-to-be also!
Anyways, I like Tanzania so much better than Jamaica. I think I said that before, but I can’t stress it enough. I feel very safe here because the people are so poor that they don’t have weapons. Also, there aren’t very many cars, and there isn’t a lot of trash because people don’t have much to throw away. One thing I love is that almost every women has a baby tied to her back….the babies are so cute! You also see children with babies on their back, and they are hardly bigger than the babies themselves. I asked one of our counterparts at what age she let her children carry the next baby on their back and she said at age four! I am getting lessons in how to tie them on, but I still need a little practice. Also, the babies don’t have diapers here, so when they are on the mother’s back and the go to the bathroom, it basically just goes on the mom. That part makes me sad. I also found out that when a mother has a baby, the husband doesn’t sleep in the bed anymore, instead the baby does until it stops breastfeeding. I was told that this is basically done so the mom doesn’t get pregnant again right away!
Now that I learned how to say candy, the children love it. I love giving it to them because they get so excited! My parents got me so much stuff to bring to the children and I have only been here a week and I’ve pretty much given it all away already.
Anyways, I think Karen and I are going to stay on here in Mwanza an extra week or so, after the others leave, instead of going back to Dar. There is more to be done and we want to stay and finish it. Besides, it sounds a lot more appealing being out in the field than in the CARE office in Dar analyzing data. I guess this didn’t end up too short afterall, but there is always so much I want to try to share with everyone. I just got a text from Jeremy that the Gators beat Kentucky and are back on track! Yeah! Good night!