Saturday 1.31.09

We arrived in Moshi around 10pm last night after an exhausting 24 hour flight. The air is warm, and I can't help but smile constantly at how happy I am to be back here.
We checked into our hotel and had a makeshift dinner of crackers, chocolate, and granola bars. We had arrived too late for a real dinner.
After a terrible attempt to sleep the three of us awoke at around 3 to 4 this morning. This 11 hour time difference is going to kill me. I'm sure I'll become more accustomed to it just in time to head back to Oregon.
The hotel here is amazing, and serves a breakfast similar to that of CCS. Eggs, fresh mango juice, coffee, tea, toast, and a bowl of fruit. It feels good to be back here, and I can't seem to wipe the grin off of my face.
We had already decided that today would be not very productive, but it wasn't half bad. After breakfast we went into town to pay Abbas for our room and to give him a computer and camera that Jennifer had purchased for him in the US. We traded our dollars into shillings and went over to the Aroma Coffee House where I was finally able to get a cup of the Masala milk chai that I have been craving ever since I left last year. It was just as amazing as I had remembered it.
We spent more time wandering around Moshi and re-living the "old days." I am happy.

Since the three of us have been communicating solely by email over the last few months it was great to finally sit down and talk about what we really wanted to do and how we would do it, and whether helping Upendo would be the best way to use our money here. We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us, but since tomorrow is a day of rest for most of Moshi we have more time to talk before we hit the ground running.
We went back into town for some dinner and met up with Living and Amani, two of the local volunteers we worked with at CCS last year. Living gave us a lot of great information about how the school systems works here, and what we will need to do to put these children into school. So far it sounds easy, but I know we have a lot of work to do.
On Monday we will be meeting up with Living to go to Watoto Rau, a nursery school in the village of Rau to buy uniforms for three children from the Tuleeni Orphanage so that they may fit in better with their classmates. It's a small start, but it's going to be amazing.
Hopefully later this week we will be able to head over to Jiendeleze and send some of my most favorite students to primary school! I couldn't possibly be more excited.
Hopefully I'll be able to get a full 8 hours of sleep tonight and have a much more productive day tomorrow.
Until then...

The natural progression of things.

I leave in just a couple weeks to head back to Moshi. This time it is not with any organization other than the one Jennifer, Chelsea, and I are attempting to assemble. We have high hopes for this trip, and I don't think that there is anything that can completely stop us from achieving our goals of setting up a fund to cover the educational expenses of the children at the Upendo orphanage.

A little about Upendo:
Upendo is one of the more fortunate orphanages in Moshi. With that said, there is still a need for our help.
There are approximately 60 children ages newborn to 5 years old that are cared for at the orphanage. Some of these children do have a surviving family member, such as a father, who is unable to take care of them. After they reach the age of five the children are no longer able to stay at Upendo. This means that either they are transferred to another orphanage, returned to a family member (if one can be found), or they are sent to live basically out on their own with a strong possibility of landing in a home for street-kids.

Our main goal on this trip is to work out a way to pay for the 20 children at Upendo who are attending school. We are going to figure out a way to distribute funds without them being misplaced or misused ,as well as searching out trustworthy contacts for future years. If it turns out that one of us must return every year to make a payment, I wouldn't be entirely disappointed.
Second to all of this we are going to do some research of the local schools to get a feel for what a year of schooling should cost so that we pay a fair price. We will be looking into some of the secondary schools in the area so that in the future we may be able to provide scholarships to qualified children. I also hope that we will be able to connect with some of the boarding schools as a possible means of schooling for children who would otherwise end up on the street.


I sent out an email a couple of months ago saying that I would be collecting childrens clothing to take with me to the Orphanage. The response was great, and I find that I may be shipping a couple of boxes of clothing in addition to the bags of luggage that I will have stuffed full. Many people had asked about other donations, and here is my reply:

We will be providing the orphanage/students with as many material donations as possible for the school supplies. The only supplies that I feel would be beneficial to bring from the US are pencils, as the pencils that are available in Moshi are poorly made. Otherwise, I think it is best to support the people in Tanzania by spending our money there.
They will need:
Pencils
Erasers........................................0.05 cents. Yes, CENTS. Way less than a penny.
Workbooks.................................10 cents
Uniforms....................................Approx $10.00
Shoes.................................?
1 year of tuition + Books per (child)..........Approx $110.00

We are accepting donations to put into a pot to be distributed while we are in Moshi. Jennifer, Chelsea, and I will be personally overseeing the distribution of supplies and fees to the children and sisters. Unfortunately because we are new at this and just starting out we can not provide any tax-deductions, but hope that down the road this will be possible. We will offer you our word that 100% of any funds donated will be spent for the children. If we raise more funds than we will need on this trip, the money will be set aside to use for 2010.


Included in this post is a link to my paypal donation site, so that you may bypass stamps and envelopes. You will be surprised at the difference you can make with just one dollar.

Please feel free to bombard me with any questions you may have. You may leave them in the comments section below, or send me an email at meghannicolle at gmail dot com.

It would also be amazing if you wanted to pass this site onto your friends. Let's see what a difference we can make.

How it all began:

My trip to Tanzania a year ago is at the top of the list for the "Most amazing adventures of all time." The title is a big one to live up to, but that trip changed my life.
Upon return to Portland, I received my degree in Community Health Education and immediately resumed the daily grind of pharmacy work. What does that have to do with health education you ask? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I felt lost. I had just returned from Africa and had the chance to put that big check mark on my list of lifetime goals. I graduated from college and life was supposed to fall into place. I was supposed to be an adult. Instead, I felt like I had nothing. My career never magically appeared, no job that piqued my interest was willing to pay a dime, my applications were rejected for volunteer work, and I missed my students back in Moshi terribly.
My mind often drifted back to my favorite student at Jiendeleze, Asia (ah-see-uh). I beat myself up for months feeling like I had abandoned her. I could have done more. I could have done something. I wanted to sponsor her so that she would be able to go to a government-run school and maybe one day escape the life that I felt she so desperately needed to get away from. When it came down to it, I had waited too long. How do you trace down a 5 year old girl in rural Tanzania, who only shows up to school occasionally, and does not have a street address? You can't and you don't. I have been holding out hope that since she had made it this far, that she was going to be ok.

Holding out hope only lasts so long, so when the opportunity arrived to make a change I jumped on it. My friend Jennifer (we met on our previous trip to Tanzania) had been hoping to sponsor a child from the orphanage where she had worked (Upendo) and had brought up the idea to sponsor all of the children. I said "Let's do it!" It was my chance to put to good use everything I learned in school, and to stay connected to a place that I had fallen in love with.