Greetings to my loved ones 11,000 miles away!!
So much has happened since the last email and I am so glad that I finally get to email out again! Hope you are all doing well and it has been so great to hear back from a lot of you so thank you so much for the updates and kind words! I will be home in a little less than 7 weeks which is crazy!!
Good news is that we have gotten apartments for the older street kids so now 8 of them are off the streets! We have provided them with beds,blankets, stoves, and have helped to find them jobs so we are so excited with the progress we are making for the older kids! There does continue to be struggles of how to best help some of the street kids who are too old to go back to school, and there continues to be some attitude problems and gaps in our understanding of what is the best things for these kids, but we continue to strive to find new solutions for them. We have taken half of them to be tested for HIV and I am thrilled to report that they have all been negative thus far. We finished teaching the street kids the HIV curriculum and I am so glad that they now have that knowledge to protect themselves fro
We had our first rain storm and it poured rain for 24 hours! Our site was a mess and so much fun all at the same time because there were mud puddles everywhere! Both of our Land Rovers got stuck in the mud so it took 2 hours for half of us to help push them out of the rain. But we all had smiles on our faces and laughed because there were definitely mud fights and dancing in the rain so overall it was an amazing experience! Since all of the roads to our site are dirt roads I am sure that we will encounter many more mud adventures, but it just adds to the stories here and what we work together to overcome!
Unfortunately, I did get malaria, but the great news is that I caught it early and took the strongest medication! I am happy to report that this morning I woke up and it is the first time in over a week that I feel energized again that the parasite is completely out of my body! It is such an odd disease because one moment you will feel fine and the next you are weak, tired, dizzy, lightheaded, and feverish. About half of us have gotten malaria, but over here it just happens and is not as big of a deal as in the US. Don’t worry though because I am healthy and rejuvenated again!
I forgot to talk about how incredible it was to watch Obama’s acceptance speech over here!! We woke up at 4AM and watched CNN from a hotel! Everyone in Africa is nuts over Obama and we were all so excited; we made Obama headbands and wore them all day! We were all so moved by Obama’s acceptance speech and I got this hugs twinge of homesickness during his speech! However,it is incredible that I was in Tanzania when history was made with Obama being elected president! The rest of the day when Tanzanians would see us they would yell Obama and cheer! It was such a great day to be a mzungu (a white person from America)!
We also got to visit one of the only remaining leprosy centers in Tanzania and I was so blessed by this experience. Leprosy causes the fingers and toes to fall off as well as blindness in one or both eyes. It was such a great gift that our group did not believe in the stigma and were not afraid to touch them and chat with them. They had so much joy in their eyes and their smiles radiated with light when we talked with them! Nuns run this center and they told us some amazing stories! It is so tragic that family members still will abandon their loved ones if they get leprosy, despite the fact that this disease is not contagious if they receive one year of treatment. The lepers make some amazing crafts that they sell for an income for themselves and they are so beautiful. This visit has been one of the most memorable things I have done here. There are only two leprosy centers in Tanzania and I think this disease still only exists in 10 countries in Africa.
On Satuday I am going on a safari to Ngorongoro Crater and I can’t wait to email you all about the animals that I will get to experience in their natural domain!
It is crazy that my program ends in only 4.5 weeks! I miss you all and will try to email again soon because I don’t have that much more time here! You are all in my thoughts and prayers and I love you so much! Hope things are going well at home and I will be back so soon!
All my love,
Alissa
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