Update #5

At the moment I have a lot to do in the shelter. Every day I learn new things and problems arise. There is so much more to it than expected.

The Fundi and two helpers plastered the house in four days and now we have to buy the materials for the next step in the coming days so that he can continue. We have also agreed on the money, so the completion of the whole extension is expected to cost 1200€. 340 for him and 860 for the materials.

I'm still making slow progress with the shelf, because something always comes up. But it is already waiting, painted and ready to be assembled!

As our food supplies are running out, we had to go shopping urgently. Grandma said she had no money and could only buy something again in the new year. What should we do until then? No idea. At Christmas, there are usually quite a few donations... But since the WorldUnite! project donation, which every participant receives, has obviously not been used yet, I knew that Grandma must have the money. When I asked her about it, I had the money in my hand within 10 minutes. For 100,000 TSH we got 25kg of rice, 9kg of sugar, 12.5kg of salt, 5 liters of oil, 3kg of washing powder and a little firewood. Now we hope for plenty of Christmas donations in the form of rice and beans, ideally enough to last until summer.

Last week, a social worker from the District Office came to check the situation and complain about the things he had already written in his letter: lack of cleanliness, the matron must be more attentive; the missing patron and cook; the constantly changing staff. From where should we get the money to hire more people? Good question. His argument for everything was that you simply have to have enough money to start an orphanage. But since it's obvious that this is not the case with us, I wanted to hear other suggestions for solutions. Until I made it clear that it can't be that there is no help from the government at all, and he can't always go back to this "argument" because it leads nowhere, there was absolutely nothing. But then he replied that there is only one budget meeting for the next year once a (half) year and then he can address the issue of getting support for the establishment of our own chicken farm to generate money on the one hand, but also to produce eggs and meat ourselves.

At the last meeting, he planned a health check that we had last Saturday. I was at the shelter at 7 a.m. so that we could be at the Siha District Hospital at 8 a.m. We had to wait for over 1.5 hours until it started. The doctor checked all 14 children. Apart from colds and skin infections, everyone seems to be healthy. Later it turned out that laboratory tests should also have been carried out, but I didn't know about that. While we were waiting for the medication, a small pickup truck arrived with three young men who had a motorcycle accident. Covered in blood, with broken bones and groaning heavily. The children ran to the door, watched the whole time, and couldn't be chased away. The matron in the middle of it. That really annoyed me.

At some point, they left and I stayed to wait for the medication. In the meantime, the men were treated, one had to go to another hospital and the other two had to wait in the corridor, with their open feet on the tiles and bleeding everywhere. Hygiene in the hospital is really different here! But it was really cool to see how carefully one of our children's wounds was treated. The sterile items are kept here in metal boxes. In general, I think the available resources are used very cleverly.

Mama Hope has initiated me into the secrets of the Tanzanian baking world. She bakes cakes for the largest supermarket in Sanya (which is about the size of a well-stocked kiosk). They always look more spectacular than they are, because they are beautifully decorated with lots of icing. But underneath it's just ordinary dough with lemon or other flavors.

For her birthday, I baked a marble cake with chocolate glaze, which is very exotic here. They had never heard of it and it was even more beautiful that they liked it!

The birthday was also very different from ours. My cake was the only gift or attention. In the afternoon, I went to the sports field with my siblings. The older ones played baseball and the little ones played soccer, all in slippers or barefoot. In the evening, a neighbor came by with his three children and we first ate yogurt and drank soda, then cake and finally noodles. But the cake eating was quite a spectacle. First, everyone was fed with a small piece, which I think is tradition here. Only then did the larger pieces come. After that, the children were allowed to dance a little and we drank South African white wine. They have already bought wine for me three times, even though they don't usually drink alcohol... Very sweet. 🙈 So it was actually more of a party for the children. And even 6-year-old Patricia can wiggle her butt like the grown-ups! 😂

The weekend before last, I spontaneously went to Moshi in the evening. Despite being very tired, Anna and I went to the Lurheran Church in the morning. According to the internet, the service was supposed to start at 10 o'clock. We were late, but fortunately it hadn't started yet. After a short time, a woman sat down next to us and explained that there was an English service at 7 o'clock and that it was in Swahili. Not a problem, as it turned out later. The church itself was already impressive. A shell building, scaffolding and wooden supports thrown together, the balcony still without a railing, and about 600 people there. Unthinkable in Germany! In the first half hour, only singing took place, the singer and the choir were accompanied by a band and it was like a concert. The prayers before and after were followed by a very long sermon, during which the pastor was also celebrated like a star. Afterwards, there was more singing and the collection was taken. When the auctioning seemed to have no end, some of us quietly left with others from Tanzania. That was church in a completely different way. Really cool!

Last weekend, I stayed in Sanya the whole time. On Saturday, I was at the hospital all day and then at the shelter. We wanted to make Kashata there, a kind of cookie made of peanuts and sugar. However, there was no time for that because we had visitors from three Germans. They wanted to pay for the children's school meals next year and needed information. Of course, there wasn't any. I took care of it and now manage the money.

On Sunday morning, I went to church and in the afternoon I walked through the surroundings of Sanya for three hours. It was really beautiful! You could hike here all day because it never gets boring! Either you discover cool places or get into conversations with people. And on sunny days, there is also the view of the mountains 😍

This week we are mainly spending on paying for the meals for next year. Yesterday there was a three-hour meeting, I didn't understand a word, the only important thing for us was that the food for each child costs 20,000 TSH for the whole school year. Today we wanted to pay, but the director couldn't issue a receipt, so we have to wait until Friday. Everything takes time here... Tomorrow we are going to the secondary school and hope to be able to pay for our eldest son there. By the way, if you have debts with the school, they come to everyone and take something as a pledge. In our case, it was wood and a bicycle. But it can also be sofa cushions, as we saw in the office. 😅

Yesterday afternoon, a family also came to the orphanage to celebrate the 10th birthday of their daughter with us. They were supposed to come at three o'clock, but they arrived at half past four. They brought cake, candy, lollipops, and oranges, which of course was great for the children. But the whole thing was just terrible. Every step had to be photographed. It was all about great photos, everything was staged, and the daughter obviously felt uncomfortable, the mother looked bored and the father was engaged. It was probably well-intentioned, and the children were also very happy that there was something sweet, but I felt like I was in a zoo. And I thought only Europeans would do such things...

Today I also tried to make kashata. We'll find out tomorrow if it turned out well, when the sugar has hardened and we can cut it into pieces. But it will definitely taste good!

Other than that, I am already planning the next few weeks and I am happy that there is so much coming up and to do!