A day away from the hospital

Cassie and I in the back of the pick up, before we left for the primary school


Today we were asked to help pass out items that have been sent as donations from a past volunteer at the school where she worked. It was an adventure to say the least. I likely won't be able to capture it all but will try to do so in the order that they occurred.

It started with a planned meeting time of 9am at one of the coordinator's house. We arrived late but that didn't matter as he was not there anyway. It is "African time" ...get used to it. He finally arrived and we hit the road at 10:45. We had a hired truck which only fit 6 people and we were traveling with 9 including the driver, so I sat in the back of the truck with the donations and two of the other guides. It was great, except I was COVERED with fine dust/dirt when we arrived. I have pictures but don't know when I will be able to get them on here unfortunately. Anyway, we made a slight detour and visited the driver's family (his two wives and his 5 children between the ages of 3-1.5 years old) They offered use tea and it is rude to say no, but we all wished we could have. It was mostly cow's milk with maybe a touch of tea that had been cooked over a fire and smelled and tasted like smoke. We also watched the men drink warm/fresh cows milk from long goard's. Then back in the car to the school....





We arrived at the school and all this children ran outside and just starred at us. We are getting more used to the celebrity status we have here as "white people". They even touched our skin, I guess to see if it was real. We met with the head master and the teachers and then had the children line up my class and we handed out the donations. Most of which was clothing, and it didn't even have to fit the children we were giving it to. No one cared! The teachers just kept saying it is ok they will give it to their family for other children. So every child got at least one thing and many were sneaky and would hide their gift and return for a second or third (in one or two cases a forth I'm pretty sure





After we passed out the goodies we noticed our driver was gone. We were told we would be walking to the market (Please note on the 1.5 hour drive in we saw NO market) He assured us it was close. And it actually was. This market was for the natives ONLY! They were selling livestock, mainly goats and cows, both dead and alive. We were escorted to the goat section and welcomed inside one of the many corn stalk huts where we had a room temperature soda and "fresh" goat's meat. It was not bad! But we will see how all of our stomach's handle the tea and the goat's meat!



Then it was time to go home, and still no driver. So we got on a "dalla dalla" (van/mini bus) and headed back to town. This was an adventure as it was raining and the roads are all dirt with many big holes, driving is mud is much like snow I guess. We only got stuck twice and only feared for our lives for about 20 minutes! But we made it back to town in one piece and celebrated with some ice cream in the shopping area very near to our host family's house.

Now to go home and wash up! I almost blend in with the locals after the very dirty car ride!