What has Captain Jason been up to?

What has Captain Jason's been up to?

Jason has been very very busy the past week. He has been flying a lot to get his hours up as well as putting in hours at the office. He usually leaves around 7:30am and gets home about 6:30, M-Saturday! His boss reassures him that all his hard work with pay off in the long run and we are very optimistic about Jason's future with this awesome company! I cannot remember the exact plane it is but I do know that Johan, the bossman, refers to one of the plans as "Jason's plane". It is a smaller plane but it is faster than the caravan and they expect to have a lot of flights. Things just keep getting better!

What has Aubree been up to?

I have also been busy this week! Most mornings I leave with Jason or leave shortly after. At 7:30 in the morning the Dalla dallas are bursting with people so I usually wait until about 9 so I won't be hanging on for dear life. Things have been very busy with Walk In Love and Neema House. Neema house now has 4 babies! Two new babies this week. WIL has officially started it's women empowerment working program. Merchandise will be for sale online this weekend!

Check my other blog at walkinlovetanzania.blogspot.com and/or check out my website at www.walkinlovetanzania.com

We have had virtually no social life because we have been working so much but we do try to get out every Saturday night. We met a nice American and have made plans with him this weekend. I am also trying to plan Jason's 26th birthday party! We have decided on a Mexican theme. That means margaritas, coronas, tacos and a piñata! We are very excited to have all out new friends over for the day. Wish me luck in finding presents because "good" things are few and far between here.


In other news, Jason is tired of me complaining about it taking almost an hour to get to Neema on the local transportation so he is going to teach me to drive the motorcycle this week! I'm excited and terrified:) Michael has found a back road between our house and Neema so we are going searching this weekend and hopefully it is motorcycle safe of I'll be on the road people. Exciting! Terrifying!
Thats all the news for now folks.
Lots of Love
Aubree and Jason

Babies, Babies, Babies!

Jason was again sent off to Dar for important meetings and to take his Tanzania commercial pilots test this past week. When I told Claire that Jason has to go to Dar she invited me to stay with her and the kids for the couple of days he was gone.  I happily agreed! Even at 29 I still love a good slumber party! I got to Neema House on Tuesday to catch the tail end of the interviews that Claire, Micheal and Mama Musa had been holding all day. They interviewed around 35 women for 7 nanny positions.  I only caught the last three but I wasn't sad about it. Claire, Micheal and Mama Musa seemed pretty worn out by time I got there.  They are conducting final interviews today so that when the baby arrived they are staffed and ready to take them in.


I will be interviewing some of the women that were not selected to be nannies but the have tailoring experience on Friday. There were several women that had many people depending on them and it will not be hard to find a women that will fit the criteria to be our first WIL women in the "Believe in me" working program. I will need the women to have tailoring experience so that she can start making some of the items we will be selling on our online shop. The more we sell the more women we can employ! To the right are the first fabrics we bought at the market. We will be making robes (for men, women and children) aprons (men, women and children) lounge pants (men, women and children) dresses and rompers for little girls to begin with. My idea is to have pictures of each item but the customer can then pick which material they would like there clothing item made out of. I am hoping to have some items up by next week so people can start ordering! Micheal will be returning late summer and has agreed to carry an orders back with him. Then my parents will carry orders back in early November. 


While staying at Neema House we got a call about a little boy, Frank, that had been abandoned by his mother. After meeting the grandfather that had been taking care of the little boy we decided that they did not really meet the criteria for staying at the orphanage but so far they have met criteria to be in WIL outreach program. The grandfather has taken very good care of the Frank but simply has no one to watch him during the day. He has tried for the last month to find someone to help him but he cannot work and keep Frank because he is just too young to be left by himself. It is sad that the grandfather's only option was to place his little grand baby in an orphanage. The grandfather even said that if we took him he would send what little money he had to help feed Frank. We will be visiting Franks home on Monday to see if they fit all the criteria. Most likely Frank will be our first child to have a daycare sponsor ($35 per month). I do plan on opening a daycare within the next year but that does not help Frank or his grandfather right now. I will update you on Frank and his grandfather after the home visit. 

Claire and I also met with a midwife this week. She contacted Claire because she had recently moved to the area with her husband and children and wanted to do some good work with the community. When Claire told me about her I immediately started thinking about all the knowledge and experience she could bring to WIL.  In our meeting I asked her how she would feel about going to the villages and teaching the pregnant women what they needed to do to keep themselves healthy throughout the pregnancy and after. She will also be doing basic health check ups on the women and babies once they are born. We will also be bringing food and prenatal vitamins to the women once a month once the program is funded and ready to go! I hope to launch this and all the programs in October.

Claire, Mama Musa, Monik (midwife) and I went to visit the NICU unit at the government hospital in town this week. Many babies, for one reason or another, are abandoned at this hospital. Some of the mothers just get up and walk out after delivery and others are brought by people who have found them on the side of the road, in a pit latrine, etc. Once the babies are healthy they will then be sent to an orphanage, like Neema House. While we were there Claire asked one of the nurses about a 1 lb 10 oz. baby that has been abandoned months before. The nurses led us over the Elizabeth, now 3 lbs. 4oz. It really is a miracle that these babies are able to pull through. Mt. Meru has a good survival rate despite the fact that the babies are not in incubators and they often run low on formula. The head nurse, Rose, said that once Elizabeth is up to 5 lbs. 8 oz she will give us a call and we can bring her to Neema House. I plan on volunteering at the NICU on a regular basis. I am going to ask the nurses if they will allow me to do some skin to skin therapy and/ or just hold the abandoned babies. Most of the babies mothers stay in a separate room right off the baby room. They feed and spend time with them everyday.Below are pictures of a few of the babies in the NICU unit. The nurse said they deliver an average of 35 babies per day. The very first picture is Elizabeth.

I also went to visit my old friends from Cradle this week. It was so nice to see and kiss on the babies! Here are a couple of pictures I took on my visit.

I also spend a lot of time with Franki and Meshack this week. They are both doing very well at Neema House. The doctor is very happy with their weight gain and overall health. Meshack is very strong and healthy but he does still have blood in his stool and cannot go back to the village until that has cleared up. We will be taking Bibi (grandma) back to the village as well as delivering formula for the remaining triplets in the village on Friday. 

Jason has had a really exciting week as well! He took and passed his Tanzania commercial pilots license!!! The day after he got the results he flew his first passengers into the Serengeti! Jason is a person that has proven that if you want something badly enough anything is possible! So proud of my husband:)

Peace and Quiet

A lot of things have been happening with Walk In Love these last 3 weeks! I haven't been great about updating my blog but please check out my website at www.walkinlovetanzania.com. We plan on having the Neema House open house on June 30 so this will be a busy month. Next week I will start to interview the women and do some home visits! I'm so excited to get "Believe in Me" off the ground and start changing some lives!




The house is pretty quiet except of course for the sounds of chickens, goats and random people outside, but the point is that the noise is not coming from the inside anymore. Its actually a little lonely now that we are "back to normal". I miss Nancy's high pitched, loud voice calling Jason "ki Cha!!"which means crazy in Swahili. I also miss B snuggled on my hip demanding kisses all the time! Selemani smile from across the room and his never ending imagination! As most of you already know, Jason and I took care of our good friends children for 2 weeks. It was pretty crazy going from zero kids to three under the age of 5 but we managed quite well. Jason and Joyce were my heroes for those two weeks. Jason dove right in and wasn't scared, well overly scared, of diapers, wiping a bottom or two, or just sitting and playing the evening away. Joyce came in at the exact right moments and offered to lend a hand in the kitchen, usually cleaning all the breakfast and lunch dishes. She kept me sane! Now, I'm not going to lie, when we dropped the kids off I did feel a little like Mel Gibson in Braveheard shooting FREEDOM!! But when we returned to the house and all the toys were gone and not kids were laughing and playing I did miss them, how easily we forget!

Playing in their bedroom
Hanging to out on the front porch, we spent a lot of time there.

 Joyce, B and snarling Nancy:)

 So cute!

 Love!

 Eating popcorn and watching some Peppa Pig

 Beautiful Nancy!!!

This collection of goodies are some of our favorite finds!! Yes, you are seeing correctly. Some of the things were have been most excited about buying are shoes, broom and pan!, rain boots, fabric softener, cheese grater, kitchen towels, laundry basket and a special board and rolling pin to make chapati and tortillas. Also in the mirror you can see my party new dress:)

We went to the clothing market this week and went a little crazy buying clothes. The market we buy our clothes at is really just  side street with huge wheel barrels full of clothing. I bough a Tommy Hilferger, Ralph Lauren, tons of Forever 21, American Eagle sweaters and long sleeve shirt for 500 shillings a piece! That's 30 cents ya'll! Jason bought, well a lot, but one of his favorites is an Abercrombie zip you sweat shirt for a staggering $1.80. This is a picture of all our buys after we washed them, immediately. I told you they were out of wheel barrels right.....

Jason has had a very busy three weeks. He finally got his Captains uniform from the states. I must say he looks quite handsome!! No, he looks down right hot:) He was very excited to get the uniform and all the things that go with it. (I can't remember what they are called but the stripes on the shoulders mean something and he has his wings with the company name on them.) On top of getting his uniform his company also felt he was capable of going to Dar, the capital, and presenting the last bit of information to the Tanzania Civil Aviation (board?) to finalized the licensing of the company. He was also supposed to take his test for his Tanzania pilots license but this is Africa, so of course they didn't have enough staff and cancelled. They only offer the test once per week so Jason will have to go back next week to take the test. Johan, Jason's boss and owner of the company, is trying to get Jason flying as soon as possible now that the office is up and running. They already have a lot of clients booked this summer and they are deciding on whether to buy another plane and helicopter! I hope they do!

This leads me to another subject that Jason and I discuss quite often. Adoption. Jason and I feel very strongly that adoption is something we will pursue in the future. Before watching the three kids the last 2 weeks I was quite confident that we could have at least 5, not I'm not so confident but don't write it off! I have fallen head over heals for a particular little guy named Ibra, but I think he looks like a Mac:) Mac Charles Packard anyone?:)  I would love to adopt Ibra in the future, when Jason and I are ready. I'm not saying that we are going to adopt him, but it is not out of the question. After watching the kids I would not be surprised if Jason falls for a little girl while I have fallen for a little guy. We always say we want twins! They don't have to be related:) I have a feeling that all of our girls WILL be daddy's princesses! Here are some of my favorites of Ibra over the last 3 months.