LETTER FROM TANZANIA
Where to start!??? I have only been here for abt 5 days now and I would need a whole book to be able to tell you all my stories.
Let's start with home. Salome, my host mum is really sweet. But gosh its no easy life they are living here. We are still struggling to understand eachother and we prob will all the time. I found out she is 32 years. Her husband works far away and he only comes home every now and then. She is religious and goes to church every Sunday, as most people here seems to do. Every day, she is praying that noone in her family will be inficted with HIV.
Two days ago, she got a phone call telling her thjat her uncle died. He lives far away so she has been away for two days now. That is, its only e and Tapita at home. Found out tapita is 17. We dont understand each other at all but I bought a dictionary so I am trying to teach her english and she is trying to teach me Swahili haha. I showed her pics of the ice hotel and she was very amazed!
Gizelle told me that before Salome took her, she was living with her family north and was practicing witch craft. Gizelle told me she could put powder in her hand, blow on it and then dissapear from the room. And also, that she could fly, btu she didn't know how high above the floor. As I am sure you understand, life is very different. Its dark magic. The witches visit graveyards and dig up newly burried people to eat them. I said I found it hard to believe but she insisted its true. However, Tapita left her family and is now living with Salome....
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Everything here is happening in slow motion. If you ask anyone to meet you at 10am. The will turn up sometime around 11-15. Me and Gizelle went to the airport to pick up my permit and passport, but the Badadji (its like a three wheel scoter I use for transportation) broke down and we had to go to the Badadji station. They said it would take 5 minutes to fix. It took nearly 4 hrs. Imagine that to happen in Sthlm!!?? People would die from a heart attack just by waiting. Here....yopu just wait. So, instead of picking up my airport (which is still circulating somewhere) I spoke to Gizelle for 4 hrs. The stories are just amazing! Its very hard to believe. She had a house somewhere, but it was too expensive for her to keep, so she had to rent it out and move. The house cost abt 200 000 Tsh per month. Most people here earn abt 2000-6000 Tsh per day. That equals abt 8-25 SEK (or 1-4 AUD). Noone can plan for the future. Just survive for the day...
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God, I have so many other stories I would like to tell you. Already! I'm keeping a diary for every day so I'll remember it all.
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Its Monday now. I just had my first day of work at the clinic. The head manager wasn't there so Im still not sure what my main tasks will be. As I said, everything happens in slow motion. However today I was helping out with the HIV testing. Abt 40 people per day visit the clinic to test for HIV. Its a free service the provide to the neighbour hood. I write a journal, then take the person to the lab, which pretty much consists of a dirty small room (with electricity only every second day). A needle stick in the finger and then it pretty much works as a pregnancy test. The appearance of one line tells its negative, 2 or 3 lines means positive. Today, it was abt 5 people testing positive. The are all very scared and some ran away before they get the results (takes abt 5-20 minutes) because the rather not know. For some poeple, life is over when they get the diagnosis because of depression. As Rody (my translator which I hire for 7000 Tsh/day) told me he hadnt tested himself cause he rather just die once.
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Ok. I have just another 10000 stories to tell you, but my time is running out. If someone tried to msg me on the phone, I got only one msg from dad. Doesnt seem to work very well so maybe email is to prefer.
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Hope everyone home is good. I'll be back toupdate the stories asap!
