Matt's thoughts

This is my first post after about 2 weeks here. I've been keeping a hard copy journal, and I'm also often without Internet. My days have been busy, to say the least. I am working with St. Lucia Orphange, which houses 18 HIV positive orphans. While I'm at the Orphange, I do tasks around the house while they're at school, such as cleaning and setting up their garden. When the kids come back, I help feed them, wash them, and play with them. Often I'm not at the Orphange; I've taken the kids to get checkups at the hospital, I've gone to the market to buy food and hardware, and twice I've been to local villages that have HIV positive children and other poor families. In these villages we distribute donations of vitamins, Tylenol, shoes, clothes, etc, find out what they need, and help plan sustainable development projects. The village elders and health workers are savvy and realize handouts aren't sustainable. There is a lot of business opportunity in these villages for an entrepreneur willing to work here, and enterprises that have been successful in other African countries could be replicated and improved upon. There are two other volunteers, both who have been here in the past. One is from the US and one is German, who lives in Alsace. Day to day I work with a 26 year old named Allen, who lives and works at the Orphange. His English is as good as it gets here, though he still has some problems speaking it. There's 4 women who work there too, and they don't speak any English. For a country where English is the official language, only the highly educated speak it.

After work we typically hang out in town for a bit, and then take a jam packed daladala minibus back to th house. The house is nice by Tanzanian standards but is missing many comforts of home. I've learned to live with 2 minute showers, no internet, power outages, no craft beer, the occasional cockroach, body odor of others, and a lack of personal space. Overall the people have been quite nice and it is a fantastic county to visit; easily accessible and lots to do. St. Lucia is a good organization hat needs continuing funding, and I can see myself continuing to help out in an effort to get them on a sustainable path.

That's all for now. This weekend is another safari and next week will be lots of work. We will be distributing food and medicine to in need families in the villages and I have to fence off the newly planted garden.