Kiboko Lodge

Posted by Ali

Last night I set no alarm. It felt amazing to wake up to ambient noise instead of chronic beeping. Shortly after I cat-stretched awake I heard voices, one African and one Max, headed to my cottage. Too chagrined for Max to catch me still in my pj's at 10:30 a.m., I leaped from my bed to my clothes cupboard, hastily yanked on jean capris (and some other necessarily underclothes), ran my fingers through my hair while squinting in the mirror, and managed to unlock the door only about five seconds after Max knocked. Boy was I relieved I'd been awake to hear him coming. Max told me that he and Davona and the kids were going to look at a new lodge not too far away that had just opened up during the summer and asked if I wanted to join them. Eager to continue exploring the Arusha area, I immediately agreed and asked to have a few more minutes to get ready.

I hurriedly brushed my teeth, put in contacts, ran a brush through my hair, grabbed my newly acquired sunglasses (thanks Jonathan for helping me pick them out!), and was out the door just as Max and Davona walked from their house to the Land Cruiser and called their girls to come. After helping buckle the girls, Staci and Moriah, into their car/booster seats, we were out the campus gates and down the road. We turned onto the same road that we'd taken yesterday to go to church, but then soon left the bumpy pavement to take even bumpier unfamiliar (to me) dirt roads. It was like an adventure watching for the flat rocks marked in white paint with KL - for Kiboko Lodge - that were propped up against trees, wooden fence posts or other rocks whenever the road split. At one point we stopped to figure out the right direction and I looked out the lefthand window to see a rocky mountaintop peering out from behind a bank of clouds. I knew right away that it was Mt. Kilimanjaro (or Kili as the locals call it). But I didn't have time to pull my camera out of my pocket and take a picture before we were off again and then the roads were too bumpy to get a clear picture before it disappeared again. Oh well, guess I'll have to get a picture of Kili, (also nicknamed the shy mountain since it's almost always covered in clouds), another time.

After a fun and bouncy ride, we got to Kiboko Lodge, but found we couldn't get in since there was no gatekeeper. Max honked the horn several times and we waited for a couple minutes, but still no one showed up. So he started to back up to go to a different gate when suddenly the gatekeeper appeared and jumped up and down to get our attention before we drove off. Once we were inside the lodge we started to explore. Davona had brought a camera to take pictures of ideas they could use on the ADRA/Cradle of Love campus and started snapping away right after getting out of the car. I went inside the main building to look around with Staci and Moriah, while Max talked to a lodge worker who had come to greet us. The worker gave us a wonderful tour of the property and, while Max and Davona talked to him, I had fun playing with the girls. On the tour, we also got to go inside one of the standard rooms and also the honeymoon suite. The low-hanging mirror in the honeymoon suite drew the girls like a magnet and they stood in front of it preening. Moriah worked at smoothing her hair down while Staci examined her wiggly bottom tooth. Davona laughed at their childish vanity and I got busy taking some pictures of their adorable antics. During the tour, I also learned a new Swahili word, kiboko, which means hippo. The lodge has a hippo on the property, but the guide told us that the hippo was a Christian and was off at church and nowhere to be found. Oh well, I guess I'll have to see my first not-in-a-zoo hippo some other time.

After seeing most of the grounds, we went back to the main building/cafeteria and had some soft drinks to cool us down before climbing back in the Land Cruiser for the rough 45ish-minute ride home. When we got back, we parted ways to eat lunch, but Max asked if I would mind working on the proposals with him in the afternoon, even though it was Sunday. I know he's got two big proposals to finish up, so I agreed to help him. I really didn't have anything else pressing I needed to accomplish (although I think that, on Sundays when Max doesn't need my help, I'll probably spend some quality time over at the baby home with the kids). So I spent the afternoon helping Max work on the ADRA UK proposal and we got it pretty much almost finished by 6:30 p.m. when we decided we really had to stop for the night and take a break. I went back to my room to relax, but had a surprising experience just as I walked in the door. I heard a skittering noise and looked up to find a black and yellow striped lizard climbing the wall above my door. When he saw me he raced to the ceiling and disappeared into a tiny hole in the corner. So I guess the lizards are my upstairs neighbours. Interesting. I hope we get along for the next nine months and don't invade each other's privacy too much.

Fifteen minutes later Danielle knocked on my door asking if I wanted to come eat supper with her and the other Cradle volunteers. I was ready for some hanging out with them and ran to grab a bag of penne to contribute for the pasta they were making. I tried to help Danielle and Anika with their cooking, but they were well on their way with their garlic tomato sauce and the pasta didn't really take much looking after, so I mostly just talked to them until the other girls came up from their evening shift at the baby home and we sat down to eat. The meal was scrumptious and the company quite welcome. They had all gone to the market with Ashley (the volunteer who has been here 7 weeks) and had bought fresh fruit and vegetables. I was going to leave some money with them so they could get me some produce, too, but I forgot to. Guess I'll just have to wait for fresh fruit until I can join them on a market trip.

After supper Danielle decided their fridge was really gross so I helped her clean it out (my job was to hold the doors open so she could reach in with both arms to hold the gone-bad food as far as possible from her nose). Jackie and Becky assisted by giving advice on which items to throw out (they both thought most everything should go). It was actually the most fun I've ever had cleaning out a fridge and freezer, mostly because we were constantly laughing/gagging and that's just a strange sound. We also managed to find a Monsters Inc. Pez dispenser with Pez candies still inside and a red felt Christmas stocking still holding candy hiding in the freezer. I was greatly amused by those discoveries. After helping Danielle take out three overflowing garbage bags to the garbage-burning area in a corner of the property, I told her that she could come back to my cottage and use the Internet there. She hadn't been getting good Internet in her apartment and I'm sure that having 4 other girls who were also all using the wireless wasn't helping anything. Now she's here and happy to finally be able to get her e-mails. And I'm happy to have company. It's nice even though we're both quietly doing our own thing. I think this year is going to be pretty fun...once we get these proposals done and the actual grant writer gets here, that is :)