Akuna Matata: No worries

Notice that in this picture there is only one set of lonely feet. Adam didn't get to join me on this trip. After traveling to Israel from the US for an action packed 30-hours, I boarded a plane into the heart of Africa for the first time. Destination: Tanzania.

Sitting here in my sunny living room in Be'er Sheba it warms my heart to reflect on my good fortune over the last few months. Who am I kidding, its been a wild, exhausting, incredibly gracious summer for Adam and I. When thinking about the trip to Tanzania, it presents itself in two different parts. So I will do the same for my dedicated readers so as to facilitate a gentle flow or narrative and imagery. Without further delay...

PART ONE: WORK

What brought me to Tanzania just a few weeks after our big wedding party was COHI's Summit for Women and Children's Health. I had the good fortune of joining a team of women's health professionals from the US, Latin America, and the Mid-East for three days of service work followed by an international conference highlighting the work of COHI's partner organization in Tanzania, FLEMAFA. You can visit th COHI website to see more photos and to read about this successful and moving week we shared. Here are a few pics to give you a sense of what we were doing in Kisarawe District, Tanzania where 22 women die each day due to childbirth related illness and complications.

The first day of orientation in Dar, at the Palm Beach Hotel.

From left to right: Faridah Mgunda, Executive Director of FLEMAFA, local TBA, Me, and another local TBA. The TBAs had brought a woman in labor to the health facility where this photos was taken. COHI's field team assisted in the delivery of this health baby boy who was named Ahmed after one of COHI's team members. What a gift!

We found sometime to play while working, and here we are shaking our booties to some AWESOME Tanzanian pop music at Ahmed's birthday party at our guest house in Kisarawe. Our friends decked out Mindy in the local garb, see the head-dress here she is sporting. She is getting down here with Karinje, Faridah's son who just completed his first year of medical school in Tanzania.


Here is a shot of Mindy Levy, home-birth midwife in Israel, leading a discussion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in delivery at the conference hosted by COHI and FLEMAFA in Kisarawe.

We headed to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro to send the climbers for women's health on their way to successfully reach the summit. This is the group at the bottom of that very, very big hill.

PART TWO: PLAY

I was greeting in Dar by my good friend Bob (we met while we were both living in Vietnam) who's spend the summer in Nairobi. He spent the first few days with the growing COHI group before he headed back to Nairobi to fly to Berlin where he is in school. He we are in Dar on the beach. Lovely city.


Below is the view of Kili as you fly in from the North. I was sitting on the plane next to a 60 year old woman who was planning to sky-dive onto the summit. Can you imagine? All of COHI's climbers made it successfully to the top, you go gurls!

I was way way way too tired to climb the mountain after the wild summer I'd had, so I went on safari with Mindy. Our guide, a Masai named Jacob, taught us so much and kept us safe from the wild animals, and our desire to wander off into the Serengeti to join them. Here are some pics of what we saw.


After returning to Arusha to meet the euphoric and smelly climbers at the bottom of the mountain and celebrating their triumph with them, Mindy and I spend a few days in Zanzibar. Gorgeous and bubbling over with history, we wandered the streets checking out the spices, shops, and spent a day on Slave Island trying to get our head around the tragedy that had transpired on this small island.

This is the view from one of the cells that held slaves as they waited to board the ship that would carry them away from their homes.

Did you know that Freddy Mercury from QUEEN was from Zanzibar? This is the view from the patio at Mercury's, a restaurant he opened there. Great fish tacos!



And here are some pictures of life in Tanzania. It is such a gorgeous, kind place. I encourage you all to visit, and to go see the animals, WOW. COHI may be making the climb an annual event, so keep checking if you'd like to join us in 2008.