Dinner at Maembe

We had a great afternoon of shopping with many of the girls choosing “elephant pants” as their African fashion statement. We returned for a brief respite at the hotel before heading out to Maembe (which is “mango” in kiswahili due to the restaurant being surrounded by a mango grove) for our final dinner in Tanzania. We had three speakers from Pamoja Tunaweza (meaning “together we can”) an organization that primarily works with women and children living on the streets of the Moshi region. We heard from Lilian Maro, a nurse and Assistant Director who spoke of the medical services and challenges they face in dealing with this particular segment of the popularion; Musa Mwamasika, Social Worker and Morgan Amani, Boys and Girls Supervisor (the later two speakers are former street child themselves). These last two speakers spoke of their life journey and how they came to be in the program and how they are helping with the social aspect of youth living in the streets. All three were inspiring with their stories and it was an excellent way to spend our final evening meal together.

Assante sana (thank you very much) to all of you who have followed our blog. While there will be further postings, they will be reporting on our progress in our journey home to Canada and not about what we have done or learned in our time away. We are all looking forward to seeing our various family members and friends at Pearson Airport on Sunday afternoon. Just over 24 hours will have elapsed since we took off from Kilimanjaro until we land at Pearson so please excuse any perceived lack of enthusiasm on our part at our first sighting of you. We might be a tad tired (Superbowl or not!)