Back in the US of A!!

Well, we never really posted a final blog about our good byes and return home in mid October. It was really hard to leave the kids. We want to know what they are doing every day but are just trying to let go a little. We are keeping in touch with letters, Christmas gifts, and even phone calls.

Ned says good bye to his crew of security guards.

Good bye mwalimu Mery.

Ned bought everyone soda on the afternoon we left. Good bye mama sara and mama joyce!

Look! I can chug my wholel soda!

Good bye Eric!

Ned says good bye to his best bud and cab driver- Joseph.

good bye neighbor lady that brought fresh eggs and milk each morning!

Bye baby Enochi.

Bye friends from the village.

But rather than finishing our story about Africa, we think it is time to start the next one:

Ned & Emily's Blog Part II: Abu Dhabi and Brand New Baby!!

Yep, we are moving again. This time for 2 years instead of 1. Ned accepted a job with a Portland engineering company that is sending him (us) to the United Arab Emirates to help start up an international office. Ned is really excited about the opportunity and can not wait to get over there and get started. Emily is a little bit more hesitant this time around. Picking up and going to Africa without any set plans was exciting/adventurous/risky; going to the middle east to have a baby is... I am not sure what it is yet. But the good news is that we are going to have a baby! Next July! Stay tuned!

U.A.E is between Oman and the Persian Gulf. We will be living in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which is just down the coast line 90min. from the Emirate of Dubai.

All visitors welcome! (Except maybe not in July)

Day With The Neighbors

Meet our friend Mery. She is a 15 year old girl that we met when she came to look for work. Since then she started coming to 'greet' us regularly...a little too regulary. She is not able to finish high school b/c her parents don't have any money, but she told me she wasn't really interested anyway and wants to take a vocational cooking course instead. We thought that was a great idea so Ned and I are helping her enroll in a Hotel Training program this fall. Ned gave her some money to get a uniform made, some new shoes, and a few school supplies. It was really cute b/c she made her big shopping trip to town and couldn't wait to come back and show us all of her new goods. She had managed to buy herself THREE new pairs of shoes instead of paying the tailor for her unifrom like Ned told her to. I was kind of annoyed with her... until I remember how excited I would have been at just 15 years old.
Her family was so thankful that they wanted us to attend church with them and then spend the afternoon at their house. This Ned in the living room with her brother- note the chicken nesting in the corner behind him.
Group shot outside the house.

Mery's parents. The dad is pretty slow and is not really able to move around. Her mama works in their garden everyday and produces everything they eat.

House #2 Opens

We have been pretty busy around here opening the second house for another 10 children. Most of them are 3 years old, a couple are 4 and 5, so they require a lot of attention and training. We started a separate blog for the orphanage specifically; for photos of all the new kiddies check out http://www.havilahvillage.blogspot.com/

This is Dao, the new baby of the bunch. Dao's interests include sucking his thumb, wetting the bed, pooping outside in the lawn, eating with his hands, and crying at night and screaming "MZUNGU!" (ie: hey white people, come and get me!) This is me rocking him to sleep on one of his first tough nights here in his new home.

Vero Goes Home

Before Vero came to Havilah she was living with a neighbor family that took her in after her mother died. She had been with them since she was two and believes that this is her real family. So today we are all happy that she is returning to stay with them for good.

This is our Enochi giving her a kiss good bye (although she lives very close by and will be coming everyday to lean and eat lunch with us). The other little boy is Adili, her brother.

(Ariel and Merriella and volunteers that just arrived last week and will stay with the kids for the next 10 months.)

Emily & Vero













Ned carrying her little bed through the fields.












Vero back at home with her family. I actually thought she might cry when we left her, but she was so happy to be there that we could barely get her to say good bye.

TEJA SOHI GREENE

Our nephew born August 23, 2008!
6 lbs. 4 oz.

How do you spend a typical Wednesday?

As you may know, Havilah Village currently has one house full with 10 children. Our current task is finding/screening/selecting the 10 new kiddies for the second house which has been finished for some time.

In the process we have met several families from the nearby villages and spent time getting to know them and their stories of need. Most are grandparents or neighbors of children whose parents have died or have abandoned them. At first we were shocked by the number of people trying to ‘get rid of’ their children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews. We were also shocked by their ability to lie about the child’s age and the truthful whereabouts of the parents. We were skeptical of a couple of the stories we had been fed so we decided to set out on dirt path to see if we could catch these people at home and witness their actual living situations.












In one instance Ned’s surprise visit revealed truthful information. He arrived when the grandmother we had been communicating with was not home. Her daughter was there so Ned asked her where the little boy in question was… he was at his own mother’s house that day. Oh, you mean the mother that ‘abandoned’ him years ago? Ya, she lives just down the road, do you want me to show you? No thanks, but please understand that we will not be able to take this child in as an orphan.













However in most instances we are realizing these people are in a world of hurt and simply trying to procure a decent future for their children. A common household scenario looks like this: 1 grandma (with AIDs and little time left on her hands), no one from the ‘parent’ generation (AIDs or hit the road a long time ago), 5 or 6 children from any combination of different parents, a missing father figure (probably living with his other wife), and no income. It is the Grandmothers we have been dealing with most. They are strong old ladies who are desperate to find homes for their children before their time is up, and they will tell you absolutely anything in order to do so.

We visited this Bibi (Grandma) today. She is staying in a small house taking care of 6 little rug rats that have been left with her for one reason or another. We are pretty sure two of them will be moving into this house. After visiting I found it hard to stay mad at her for lying about a third child she was trying to squeeze into the original deal. She cooked up a special porridge of ‘milk’, ugi, and dirt in honor of our visit. We felt terrible declining her, we really do try to eat everything…but I tried it and there was NO WAY I was going to finish a whole glass. She was really mad at us and embarrassed that we left her house with out full bellies. Shameful.
This is Hawa, showing us how she can write her own name…in the dirt. Good Girl!

Here is the second Bibi we saw today. Her health is getting pretty bad and she has a pain in her leg that makes it hard to walk. We went inside to talk and she offered us her two stools, the only items in the concrete room. She has been left alone with three little girls, the rest are just neighbors that ran over to have a look at the wazungu (white people).

It was a long hot dusty walk through coffee plantations and corn fields, so we stopped at this little store on the way back for a drink and a rest. Dorcas asked to come along and for some reason I let her, she is happy to have Ned and Emily all to herself today. This is what we did on Wednesday.

Day by Day

Greetings all! I was recently reprimanded by my sister for not updating our blog more often, and because the stories are too short. This, says the person who makes it her business to make fun of all my stories for being much too long…

Life is just moving along day by day and it does not always feel like we have anything news worthy to write about. So I just decided to share some of our recent photos and a bit about what goes on in our everyday lives here in Ngongongare…

This in Enoch (Enochi). Global Vessels brought a mission group to Havilah to continue work on the next two children’s homes and among them was Enoch’s sponsor from the U.S. She brought him the new sweatshirt he is sporting in this photo. He has no idea who or what a cookie monster is, but is very proud of his new digs all the same!

This is Dorcas…waiting by the front gate. The other day I came outside and found her dressed in her American pants (otherwise known as jeans) and school shoes; she was carrying in her bag a pair of pj’s, a toothbrush, and a hair brush (which is an essential item for a girl with a bald head).

“Dorcas, where are you going,” I asked.

“America. You are going to call Uncle (who is our cab driver), he is going to take me to town, and I am going to get on a big plane to go to America.”

“Oh, ok. By Dori!”

We had joked around about going to ‘America’ the day before. I told them that there are such things as doughnut shops and inside there might be 20 or 30 different types of doughnuts. AND, there are such things as ice cream shops which might have up to 50 different flavors to choose from. “WHHOOOAAAAA! Let’s go now, please?”

I thought I made it pretty clear that no one would be going anywhere. But apparently Dori woke up at 5 am the next morning, put on her best clothes, used lotion on her face an arms (which is a notable detail for the girl who won’t wash her own face), packed a bag and went to wake the house mother up to tell her good bye. She was told to go back to bed, but returned to Sarah’s door every 15 minutes pleading to be let out of the house so she could catch her plane. I was pretty darn cute, but at the same time I really felt for her because I know what it is like to really want to get up and go somewhere when there is absolutely no where to get up and go.

So……….we begged Ned to take us to a near by lake! This was pretty exciting. The largest body of water any of them have seen was the mud puddle created in the road during the rainy season. (They were so excited about that mud puddle that we actually let them go swim in it- but don’t tell anyone.)

Our first boat ride… maji kubwa (big water)!!! Fun, but not as relaxing as the booze cruise.

View of Kilimanjaro from the boat.

Mama Emily’s turn!

We have been taking a few kids at a time on special field trips, which usually involve getting to ‘go out’ to eat. We bought the girls swim suites with the intent of taking them all swimming, but the weather has been so awful that so far only 3 kids have gotten to experience an actual swimming pool. But this does not stop the one-time swimming veterans from showing the others how it is done. They had spread a blanket out on the living room floor and were taking turns running and jumping into the pool/blanket. The event was made complete by wearing proper swimming suites over their pajamas.

This is not the best photo, but it is the tail end of the local village military regiment performing their afternoon cross training. They run/march by our house about once a week singing military songs and carrying fake riffles carved out of bamboo or sugar cane or something. They are such a rag tag bunch of the kids and young men that it is hard to imagine them coming together in uniforms and protecting us in the case of an ‘event.’ This is why we are happy that in spite of everything else, Tanzania is a very happy and peaceful place!

Serengeti Safari...

We have been in Tanzania for 8 months and have finally taken a proper safari! We were waiting to take the trip in case family was able to visit, and thankfully Lacey and Kristen (her good friend from Portland) were able to join us! It was not the best time of year to see the 'great migrations', but even so we saw every animal that one is supposed to see, and had the best and closest views one could ask for!



Ned & Lacey checking out a Leopard.

We drove for 4 full days and camped in tents for 3 nights. We also had a personal cook along for the ride who fixed some pretty amazing meals and waited on us each night. The campground in the Serengeti was right out in the open with all of the animals. We did not have any close encounters; but heard many stories of people with buffalo grazing right outside their tents or lions standing between them and the outhouse in the middle of the night- yikes.

This is Kristen explaining water conservation policies to the Maasai people of the Ngorongoro Crater. Well not really... she is actually caving in and buying beaded souvenirs.
Ngorongoro Crater: This was a fantastic spot with flamingos, hippos, wildebeast, and zebras all sharing the same lakefront property.

It was a fantastic trip- you have just 3 months left to take advantage of having friends and a place to stay in Tanzania!!!

Check out the link to see the rest of our safari photos!

We Climbed Mt. Meru!

Lacey (Ned's sister) came to visit us in Tanzania for three weeks! Yeah! So without really trying we were able to give here some real Tanzanian experiences, like eating ugali and fried fish, riding in a crowded dala-dala, and riding on top of a dala-dala because it was already full.

(This is Lacey on top of a bus, we were trying to make it home before dark)

For our first big adventure we decided to climb Mt. Meru, the mountain which is right in our own backyard. It was a four day hike up and back the 4562.13 meter (14,967 ft.) peak. No, it was not Kilimanjaro, but arguably a more technical and more beautiful climb. Might I add- this is higher than any point in the continental US…although much easier to summit because there was no snow.

(There is a herd of buffalo in the background of this photo)

Day 1 – The tour company picked us up at Havilah around 10:30am and after throwing our bags on top of the van we were off to Arusha National Park. During our short drive thru the park we saw giraffe, zebra, buffalo, wart hogs, baboons, and an assortment of birds. After registering and a quick lunch we were off. We started at an elevation of 1500 meters and climbed to 2500 meters the first day to Mariakamba Hut. The weather was nice, we felt good, and slept in some decent cabins.

Day 2 – A sizable breakfast of burnt oatmeal, crumbly bread, eggs, and sausage and we were off for another 1000 meter climb which involved a lot of stairs. The morning was misty and damp, but after climbing above the cloud layer we had some great views of the peaks of both Mt. Meru and Kilimanjaro. We made it to Saddle Hut, rested for a bit, and hiked up to Little Meru (3801 meters) to help us acclimate to the higher elevation. We returned to Saddle Hut for the night.

Day 3 – We roused ourselves out of bed at 12:30am to start our climb. In the dark, with headlamps, we made our way pole pole (slowly) to the top. It was definitely hard going at times, and the higher elevation made our hearts have to work bit harder. The trail involved a lot of scrambling over rocks as we ascended, but we made it to the peak just after sunrise and had a magnificent view of Kilimanjaro rising above a blanket of clouds. (Check out the photos!) We returned to Saddle Hut for food and rest, and then continued down to Mariakamba Hut for the night.

This is the sunrise from behind Kilimanjaro, the only item we could see over the clouds at 6am!

3 of us at the summit! (very cold)

Day 4 – The last day we opted to take the longer route back to the ranger station, which was a pleasant walk thru the forest. We saw a few colobus monkeys and got quite close to a giraffe. We made it safely by mid-day, had a warm lunch, and were awarded certificates for our achievement. Our soreness and tiredness were overshadowed by our feeling of accomplishment, so after returning home and taking warm showers we headed out to a local lodge for a celebratory dinner. Emily enjoyed the trip so much that she tried to convince us to start up Kilimanjaro the next day.

That trip will have to wait for another day because next week we are off to the Serengeti!