Coffee Plantation and Church

I've officially survived a week in Tanzania! I can't believe how quickly it flew by. This Friday was our first day in a hospital, and we went to Mt. Meru. We took a bus, and there was a lot of medical equipment ready for us to look at when we got there. Unfortunately, it was also raining a bit as well, and we were planning on working outside. We made due by working under some overhangs. The first project I worked on was creating ear pieces for a broken stethoscope. We were able to replace the broken pieces with some spare tubing.

The second project I worked on was a suction pump that wasn't exerting enough pressure. To begin, we took the entire machine apart. We found the reason it was not working properly was that the moving parts in the vein pump were sticking, so we had to clean it out with alcohol and lubricate it. The big challenge was finding a place to purchase machine lubricant. We ran around Arusha for almost an hour before an owner of an electrical shop just gave us some.

On Saturday, the group went on a trip to a coffee plantation. We had to uncomfortably squeeze all of us onto a small bus. It ended up taking about three hours to get there because the driver was driving quite slowly. Once we got there, it ended up being more of a hike than any of us expected. Since it had been raining, the trail was pretty muddy, and we were all slipping around a lot. We arrived at a small home, and the owner came out to show us to where he grew the coffee plants. He told us the process and the history behind the coffee plant. Then we made our way to the caves there. The caves were man made as shelter and defense during a wartime. We got to climb down and explore the them, while the tour guide told us about how the chagga, or warriors, defended themselves and their families. We ended up staying later than we thought we would, and we got back to our homestay at around 7:30PM.

Today, Wangui and I went to church with our homestay family. It was pretty fun! There's a lot of singing and dancing, with many different groups leading each song. I really enjoyed the music. During the service, they had all of the visitors introduce themselves, including me and Wangui. Our homestay sister, Deborah, was kind enough to translate for us. After that was the sermon. Sadly, I couldn't understand much of it. At the end of the service, they had a small reception for the pastor who had recently recovered from a stroke. Everyone was very warm and welcoming. I'm looking forward to starting another week of class tomorrow.