Lost in Translation

Wednesday was all lost in translation. Somehow Dr. G and I ended up with the two CARE workers who have the weakest English skills, which resulted in a day of severe frustration. Needless to say, it is a CARE and CDC rule that we have to be off the road before dark, but instead we got home at nearly midnight. There are too many stories to tell from this day, but somehow no one was understanding one another and we ended up going to another health facility even two hours further than where we already were, when Dr. G and I thought we were heading home. We already had crossed one river where the bridge was washed out, we made our driver let us out of the car and we walked across as it was quite a dip down into the river bed and then of course having to forge the river. When we left the last health facility that we weren’t even supposed to go to it was already dark and we found out that the next bridge was impassable so we had to drive four hours back and cross the river again and this time the driver didn’t let us out of the car as no one understood English when Dr. G repeatedly said, “please let us out of the car now!”
Anyways, we weren’t able to go out Thursday as the other team was out in Kwimba where they had stayed overnight and Dr. G did not feel competent to let us go out again with the team that we were with the day before. Instead I ended up going with Bibi, who owns the house we are staying at, to read to street kids under a tree. It was great, and I took a lot of pictures for her and Dr. G took a lot of video footage to help Bibi make a documentary. Not only does she just read to the children under a tree, but she has a retired teacher who teaches them, someone who does first aid and bandages all their wounds, and she also counsels them and has extensive files on each child. She gradually learns about their life and the horrors they have been through mostly by the pictures they draw while with her. There were about 15 boys there when I was there, she doesn’t offer them food, as she says, only “emotional nourishment.” One of the kids stole my sunglasses, but I noticed before I left and asked one of the other boys who was still there if he knew what happened to them. He ran off, and ten minutes later came back with my sunglasses. It was very interesting.
The rest of the group left today to go on Safari, but i'm not going since Jeremy and I will go and it's too expensive to do twice. So, I'm saying goodbye to 3 people today because they are going back to the US after their Safari, but one other student (Karen) is coming back here Tuesday and will stay on will me the rest of the time. This weekend is my first weekend here alone, I don't really know what to do. It's been nice to be here in a group because I haven't been lonely and I always have someone to hangout with. I'm also getting tired of eating the same thing every single day, there is not a lot of variety of foods here. When we are working everyday out in the bush there isn't really food, so we haven't had lunch and we get home late, I've been really hungry during the days. It’s kind of a catch twenty-two; I try to eat a big breakfast, knowing i'm not going eat all day, but then I just get even more hungry. I wish I would have brought more snacks from home. Last night we had a nice dinner with the whole team, a good-bye dinner for the others, after working for over 10 hours yesterday on compiling all the data we have collected so far. We had a lot of laughs and I think the Tanzanians on our teams really appreciated us treating them to dinner. This weekend I will just hangout and relax and only try to imagine what Jeremy is up to right now at his Bachelor Party in Las Vegas.