“Kwaheri kwa Sasa”

How do you say good-bye to people who have become your family?  How do you say good-bye to a country that is now part of your heart?  How do you say good-bye to your new soul sister?  You don’t.   You say Kwaheri kwa Sasa.  Simply “Goodbye for now.”

It was difficult at the hospital today.  Alodia was on a countdown.  She would say, “only 4 more hours until you leave me”, then, “only 3 more hours until you leave me”, and so on. She actually drove me a little nuts.  Just before I left the hospital for the last time,  the nurses all gathered and gave me some very sweet going away gifts.   Alodia had given me a Kenga, the cloth that the women wrap around themselves for the local dress.   She had tears in her eyes giving it to me, and I couldn’t help but cry too.  Alodia said, “I know you love the mothers and babies like I do, you and me, we are the same.”   And its true. How can it be that there are people in the world you have never met, then meeting them know you are of one heart, and feel like you have known each other forever?  Crazy!

Ingali (Dr. Happy), who has been another good friend, gave me a Masai blanket.  It is brightly colored and very warm.

 

Anna, the nurse from the ward where they give babies their injections, gave me a Tanzanian calendar with baby African animals.  She knows how I love babies!   Violet, who is a sweet girl who runs a little stand outside the hospital, and I have got to know quite well, insisted on walking me all the way to the daladala, and gave me such hugs before I left.

These are just some of my new friends.  How can you make friends like this in 3 short weeks?

I think…… by really living life at its most basic level.  Unencumbered by all the strictures and pleasures and conveniences of modern life.  I think….. living life at its rawest is the real stuff.

It’s hard to express my life and experiences here.  But, I am a changed person.  I just don’t know what to say.  I can’t express it well enough to convey the emotion.  Here are just some of my memories and thoughts as I think over these last weeks as I pack and prepare to leave Arusha:

How every morning when I enter our little ward’s waiting room, full of expectant mothers, Alodia always does a little African type dance welcoming me, and she grabs my hand, having me join her.  It has become  “our dance”.  We wiggle and waggle our way up and down the aisle between the chairs, jiving to the clapping beat of all the laughing mothers.   The mothers laugh and clap, and sing away,  “Mama Anna, Mama Anna.”   They all laugh at this funny white woman who has come from so far away to share her life with them.   And they do seem quite surprised this funny white woman has a bit of rhythm in her.  I think they think that’s the most hilarious of all!

Or, of looking into the eyes of these expectant mothers every day as I measure their bellies.  Up close and personal, face to face, my hands on their warm flesh.   And when I tell them, “Nzuri sana”, (Everything very good) and see their smiles, and hear their sighs of relief.  It is a woman to woman, mother to mother moment.  Something that is understood through all cultures.

 

And then also often the babas (fathers) have come to the appointments with the expectant mothers.  When I have the father’s listen to baby’s heart beat through the funky 50’s era fetalscope, to see their eyes pop open with surprise, then their huge grins as they hear their baby’s heartbeat for the very first time.

But the best really, especially, is sharing tea at the end of a long hard day with Alodia, sitting side by side on the exam table, in warm quiet companionship, just she and I, and not even needing to talk.

And then coming home, after walking through the colorful market, and surviving yet another harrowing DalaDala ride,

 

 

 

 

 

and meeting with my new soul sister, Mary Ann.

 

 

 

 

 

We laugh and cry ourselves silly as we discuss our separate work days.

She knows how I feel.    She knows how this country gives back so much more than we can ever give it.   She knows the contrast and contradiction of this people and this land.  She too will return.  She knows and understands how we are truly changed.

These are just some of my memories here.  Can you not see what this must do to my heart?

Me and Mary Ann laughing our heads off doing a selfie on our last DalaDala ride.  I look like Ollie of “Ollie and Hardy” and Mary Ann has a mohawk!  We had some good laughs over this picture!

 

I do need to express my thankfulness.  I am so very grateful I have been able to experience this life.  And grateful to all who have made it possible.  My sweet husband, who is my biggest champion and fan.  I especially love his “rose colored glasses” and that he sees me as a better person than I actually am.  I am truly blessed to have him in my life.  I appreciate my family with all my heart, my wonderful family who has cheered me on.  Also, Sigrid, who has shared the blog with her classes, and loves to enrich their lives with our expanding world.  I thank my work at home, Willamette Valley Hospice, which gave me the time off to come, and donated supplies for St. Elizabeth’s.  And again, I’d like to express my gratitude to all the many friends who have read this blog and supported me along with their kind thoughts and comments.  I do truly appreciate it.  It means something to me that others have shared my life these last few weeks.  Thank you.

Africa.  It is addicting.  The people are the most beautiful, kind, welcoming, generous people I have ever met.  The country itself is beyond amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

School children going into our little lane to our volunteer house.

 

 

 

Masai in their Masai village  

But they live in a very challenged world.  Often heart breaking.  The contrast between the beauty and the sorrow is beyond measure.

 

Walking up the street to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A typical scene walking down the street in Arusha.

 

 

 

I have only mentioned the very tip of the tip of the mountain of this place and my experiences here.

All, I can say, is I will return.  Eric and I will come together next time so he too can know and feel Africa.

Inside the crater at Ngoro Ngoro Conservation.  I love the tranquility of this scene, of all the animals grazing peacefully together.  See the hippos in the center.

I leave my heart here, amidst the love, the hunger, the beauty, the poverty, the rawness of it all.  My heart is seared.  No better word for it I can find.  Seared and branded to this brave land and people.  That’s all I can say.  Kwaheri kwa sasa, good-bye for now.

I will post some pictures from Zanzibar.  It’s supposed to be an incredible island.  But my heart does remain here, in Arusha, and St. Elizabeths.