VOTE for...

It's crazy to think that it is campaign season in College Station right now! I am of the weird breed who loves campaign season and relishes in the community of it. What am I talking about? There is about a week long period (with months of preparation) where any and everyone running for Yell Leaders, Student Body President, spots in Senate, Class Presidents, & Class Agents hold signs & partake in nightly meetings to campaign for their spot in the government of Texas A&M University. This has been that week. Voting takes place Monday and Tuesday.

Our classroom

This week has been one of my best weeks yet. Wednesday I had the opportunity to visit Baraka(Blessings) Women's Group which is a grassroots organization made of 5 women who were trained with 15 other women on how to make peanut butter! And for those of you who don't know this about me,  "Ninapenda peanut butter"(I LOVE peanut butter)! When I said this to them, they laughed. They all work in a tiny room filled with an oven, peanut skinner, and machine that creams the peanuts. They buy the peanuts in bulk unshelled in town and pay about $130 for 100 kilos. They say that one kilo doesn't even fill one of their small tubs and they can buy 1 kilo for 2,000 shillings ($1.30). They sell the small tubs for 4000 shillings. They do get 100% of the proceeds returned to them. Think about that, with that 2000 shilling profit they have to pay the electricity bill, tax on the room, pay off the appliances they have, pay for transportation to and from the peanut shops, pay for the jars and seals and labels, and then split what is left between 5 women. WOW. When the power is working they can make about 25-30 of these small tubs each day. When the power isn't working, at least once or twice a week, they make and can pickled mangos and then jar and seal those as well. These women do not make enough money to support themselves or their families off of this business so they also have other jobs. 2 of the women are farmers and wake up super early to check on cattle and tend to the farm, come to the shop around 9, & spend all day working on peanuts. One of the other ladies knits sweaters when she isn't making peanut butter or tending to her family. I was very impressed by these women and the fact that they created this themselves & turned it into something successful. I will be returning to their shop on Tuesday and will come back with pictures! The challenge will be communication, we agreed that I would help them make peanut butter and mangos if they would help me with Swahili. We will see how this goes because they don't speak English and I speak only a little bit of Swahili. I talked with my house mates & house mom and told them I thought it would be great to buy our peanut butter from these women instead of the crappy American brand in the stores and they all agreed. I am excited to start using the peanut butter that supports local women. (We go through about 3-4 jars a week)

Thursday I volunteered at Cradle of Love from 11-2. Cradle is a baby orphanage outside Arusha that was started by a woman named Davona who basically told us that she saw a need and fixed it. You can read her story and see the babies at Cradle of Love if the link doesn't work, you can google it. They currently have 46 babies in a beautiful facility. 5 of which are under the age of 4 months, the rest are either crawling or toddling, but all under age 3. I spent my time there in the infant nursery where I fed, changed, loved, and sang to these beautiful little babies while the other two girls from my program helped with the toddlers and crawlers. The youngest, Good Luck is just under 1 month and adorable. I cannot explain to you how small some of these babies are. I am so used to chubby, healthy, American babies but some of these Children of God have the scrawniest little legs and arms with no fat on them at all! They are having trouble keeping food in Dickson as he has a form of acid reflux and continued spitting up the formula a full hour after he had his bottle. Keep him in your prayers. I have a deep respect for the African women who are the full time nanny's here. Because there is a major language barrier, there is not much communication between them and us. But moms: imagine having babies that are your responsibility, you love them like your own children, then having random volunteers come in each day and pick up the baby as soon as it whimpers or change his/her clothes 3xs within one hour because she burped up a little each time. Well, knowing most of us & knowing myself I think I would be in constant frustration. I was moved and inspired to have this mindset in my own life, not only when I have kids, but about everything in my everyday life.

I want to learn Swahili so I can talk with these dear people I meet on a daily basis or the people I continually interact with. We have two ladies who clean our house each day who only speak Swahili and I want to communicate with them better. The other day I was sitting outside reading the Bible as they were sitting out there beading something. In my most broken swahili we discussed that one of the women, Naiomi (a maasai) was making a Maasai necklace and that she was selling them, CHEAP. So we discussed that I wanted one and what colors I wanted and I bought one for 15000 shillings, about 9 or 10 bucks. It's super cool and I am pumped about it.

the deodorant is meant to show the size :)

One last thing, sorry this is super long--Morgan, one of the American students had her 21st birthday this weekend and the East Africans (EAs) were so supportive of her birthday and gave her a card and a keychain and the director of the program had a cake made for her. This is huge because birthdays are not celebrated in Tz. What we didn't know is that it was also Irene's birthday the next day. No one had done anything for her. I was talking to her Wednesday about her birthday and how she really felt about it and she said it was good, she just wished she was home (Dar es Salaam) because she missed her family and her sister always would make her a cake or get her ice cream. (Also, she has been out of school the last two weeks because she had Malaria & Typhoid.) She said the night of her birthday SHE took her the family she is living with out to dinner and SHE paid for all of them for her birthday dinner. How opposite is that from the states! Well, I told a few of the other girls this and we decided we would do something about this so we made yet another chocolate cake with peanut butter icing (MMMMM!) and surprised her with it after class Thursday morning. 3 of us busted into the room singing happy birthday while everyone joined in and then this is what blew me away, she started crying. She could not believe we had done this for her and she was in awe. Not only that, but one of the other EA started crying as well because she thought it was such a nice gesture. I have never, ever had someone so appreciative for a birthday cake. It was a very humbling experience. Also a little side note, most of the EA say they only get water in their houses 3-6 times a MONTH. WOW. The things we take for granted.

Most interesting way I have ever seen a cake cut

Neema & Irene (the birthday girl)

Sorry this is super long, I had a lot to say! The Lord is blowing my mind each day with what he is teaching me and how he has shown me he was preparing me for this trip. Please continue to pray that my actions, thoughts, and words are only glorifying to the Lord and being used to show the Lord through me.