Rachel

Rachel is the oldest girl at Tudor Village, at the age of 15. She helps Mama Nisa (who cooks are meals) out at meal time and is an all-round beautiful and wonderful girl. On Wednesday, we went to Machame, on the foothills of Kili to visit Rachel in the hospital after an operation on her leg. You see, Rachel comes from an area called Mirerani (more on that later), where the water is contaminated with fluoride. The people from this region have brown-stained teeth and often crooked legs.

Rachel had to have her leg broken in 6 different places to try to fix the crookedness. She was delighted to see us in the hospital, and we were quite happy to see her smiling face. Her room was shared with 20 other women of all ages and alignments. Her bed was stained and the room smelled of urine, all in all, I wanted never to have to be patient there. The women seemed to being doing fine though, all talking to each other and exciting about us visiting. I could tell Rachel was the life of the room, and she had made many friends, including her Masaai next bed mate. Although we were borderline appalled by the hospital facilities, we were touched by the spirit of the people and community feeling – don’t think you get that back at home, where people get mad about sharing a room with just one person.

Now Rachel is recovering back here at Tudor, we are glad to have her back. She loves singing and laughing. Most of all, she – like all the girls here – loves Shakira and her World Cup Waka Waka song. We have it in our heads all day, and it doesn’t bother us one bit. These girls have natural rhythm and are teaching us some moves, even though we generally can’t get our bodies to move like theirs!

--Abby