More volunteering

Not a lot going on the last few days. No pictures either.  Two days ago we traveled to the home of one of the patients of the Pomoja Women's Clinic.  This lady is a good example of why they setup the Women's Clinic in the first place.  The lady is in her late 30's and has three daughters.  One day many years ago, she became quite ill and went for help.  It was determined that she had HIV.  Once her husband found out, he left her (despite him being the one who gave it to her) and her three young babies.  Destitute, she moved back with her parents and their son's but they also shunned her and her children.  The father at least decided that he would sever a small parcel of land at the back of his plot and built a mud hut for her to live in.

Her brothers would have nothing at all to do with her and basically make her life miserable as she's not allowed to be around the family farm when they are there.  The father died a few years ago and luckily he left written instructions with the village warden that the plot was his daughters.  The young daughters are all young women now and were tough to support on what she could grow on one acre of land.  The land around Moshi is suitable only for one crop a year as it almost never rains for much of the year and the land is as hard as rock.  From what we could tell, she was growing Maize (corn).  As she found it impossible to feed the 4 of them when the girls got older, she sent her oldest daughter off to be a live in housekeeper at some place not too far away.  This girl was then raped continually by her employers and became pregnant.  As soon as this became apparent, her employers fired her and sent her packing.  When she got herself into a medical clinic for her pregnancy tests, it was determined that she also had HIV.  They believe she got it from her mother breastfeeding as a baby as she had always been quite sickly.  She's pretty resentful of her Mother for not telling her that she was HIV but frankly its such as stigma here, you can understand her Mother's position as well.

The Women's Clinic had been sponsoring this family and had let us know that they could use an outhouse as the women were having to go behind a bush.  Crazy as it may seem, Tanzanian law is fairly strict about the construction of outhouses (must be concrete with tin roofs, have porcelain drop holes, and be constructed to fairly high standards so this was something the Women's Clinic couldn't take on themselves and we had indicated that we'd like to help so we went out with a few of the social workers and the "Fundi" (builder) to see what it would entail.  They had also mentioned that there were a few holes in the mud hut that needed attention as snakes were getting in so we thought perhaps we could do some manual labor to address that.

What we saw when we got there however removed any doubts about building the "Cameron Crapper".  The logs that were supporting the mud hut were completely termite infested and you could push your fingers through them.  Basically the only thing holding up the roof was the mud walls which didn't have much of the traditional cow dung & ash "stucco" which prevents the mud from washing away left on half of the house (the  young girls room) and you could drive Tonka trucks through the holes in the wall which were allowing snakes, and such into the house in the evenings.  With that house in that state, it seemed silly to be spending money building a crapper that would be the only thing left standing come the rains in March so we redirected the Fundi to looking into what it would cost to repair the structure.

Some other Canadian lady had donated a large pile of stones to be used as the foundation material but it was clear that if you rebuilt the walls using traditional techniques, the termites would just get back in and do their damage once again (the place was originally built 5 years ago).  The Fundi suggested rebuilding the walls using local stones and concrete and we got a quote for rebuilding (essentially the entire house) from the ground up.  The roof rafters were all termite infested as well and the tin roof was going to leak like a sieve once the nails were pulled out so a new roof, windows and doors were required as well.  The entire quote was of course larger than our budget but we determined that we could at least do the half of the house that was in the most danger including the interior wall and the Women's Clinic would do some fundraising on their next Caravan (medical tour) to complete the rest in January.  This was a fair bit more than we wanted to spend but the thought of the four ladies and a new baby living in a place that literally wouldn't survive the rains in March (when the baby is due) clinched it for us.  Construction starts tomorrow and should be complete in a few weeks.  We'll likely not be here to see the end of it but the Cameron Bedroom sounds much better than the Cameron Crapper and we're happy to help as we could.

Yesterday afternoon, Theresa (from the Make A Difference Now Orphanage) brought four young (14-15) women over to the local YMCA and we started with swimming lessons for them.  None of them had ever even seen a pool before and only one of them could float at all (face down in the water moving her arms a bit to make her move).  The rest of them were very timid and had only been in local streams.  

I'll say one thing for these Tanzanians... they are amazing athletes.  The girl who could float (Jacqueline) and her friend (Neema) who was brave but had never even put her face in the water before, were both gung ho to try it.  Jackie could swim about 5 feet and Neema was doing everything she could to keep up.  I spent time with both of them giving them basic pointers on how to float, move their arms and kick their legs.  Within minutes Neema was putting her face in, floating and flailing away with her arms and legs and swimming 10-20' and Jackie was doing it with her face out of the water.  We got them floating on their backs and then Jackie said she wanted to try the deep end.  The pool had a pipe welded to the side of the pool wall all the way around (it was an Olympic size swimming pool) with a 3m deep end.

I left Neema in Shawn's capable hands and swam beside Neema as she went hand over hand down the pipe to the ladder at the deep end.  Then she said she wanted to reach the bottom... so she'd duck her head but of course she was full of air so didn't get down more than a few feet.  I suggested that she use the ladder to help her down and she'd go down 5-6' before coming up saying she couldn't get down any more - with evident frustration.  Then I showed her how to exhale and get rid of the extra air to make herself less buoyant and she got to the bottom on her first try.  You should have seen her face!  She was so pleased with herself.  

Then we spent a bit of time showing her how to turn her dead mans float into treading water and she could almost immediately do that...  by this time Shawn and Rachel had showed up and were jumping off the diving board and it was very apparent that Jackie wanted to try that.  I told her to try the edge of the pool first and she scampered up the ladder and jumped right in.  Head completely under, popped back up laughing, paddled back to the ladder and then it was off to the diving board!  She'd blast off the board and then paddle back to the ladder over and over.  

I well remembered learning to swim myself in a similar sized (indoor) pool on the base in Baden Baden in Germany when I was about 6.  They had a very tall diving board (about 20') high that I used to dream about jumping off (as well as a regular one about 3' high)).  Anytime the life guards weren't watching, I'd run down the pool, climb up the tall diving board and jump off and then barely make it back to the edge of the pool to have at it again.  Within one jump, the lifeguards would come chase me and tell me I couldn't be in the deep end unless I swam the length of the pool unassisted.  I spent many days getting tested each time until I could finally do it and then jump off the high diving board to my hearts content.  I've never forgotten this and figured it would be a good thing for Jackie to be able to swim the length of the pool before I set her free as I was concerned that she'd jump off the diving board with nobody around and get into trouble.

The first attempt, she made it about 1/4 of the way before she said she was so tired and grabbed on to the end.  Then I showed her that she was holding her breath to stay afloat and then didn't have enough air to complete the task and I showed her how to take the shallow topping breaths we all know how to do when swimming.  She is a very quick learner as the next time she made it to the shallow end before standing up.  She was very curious as to how Shawn and I could swim so effortlessly beside her so we took her back into the deep end and showed her how to tread water and take a break.  She did it for 8 minutes and then from there swam the width of the pool!  If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'd have never believed it!   

By now, her friend Neema, who'd been watching her jumping off the board (and without prompting even tried one dive - and got the usual belly flop) wanted her part of the action so asked to come down.  We went through a similar routine with her.  Her swimming wasn't nearly as strong as she could still only do it with her face in water but she soon learned to tread water with her head above water (tilted way back so only her nose/mouth/eyes were out).   The rest of the girls then all came down the pool (followed closely by Theresa and Veronica (a good looking Swedish young volunteer who looks remarkably like a much heavier version of my cousin Karen) hand over hand down the pipe.  They made their way around the entire pool and then we got them all back in the shallow end to dive down for some coins.  Only one girl (Omega) who'd had a very difficult experience recently was the least bit timid and even she did just about everything she could to get down and get the coins.  

We had to drag them out of the pool as they were all blue and shivering but were obviously having a blast.  You should have seen their faces when Theresa told them they were coming back for the next two afternoons!  We live for moments like this.  It makes our trip so worthwhile.

Its another hot day here in Moshi and the kids are finishing up about 3 hours of school work before we go back to the Y.  Jen and I have been working on the plan for the next few months and its starting to come together.  Right now it looks like we'll leave Moshi on or before the 3rd of December  and head for Zanzibar.  We'll take the bus to Dar es Salaam (about 8 hours) and then the 2 hour high speed ferry across to Stone Town in Zanzibar.  (This isn't the same ferry that rolled over and sunk in August... that one had mostly locals on it and was severely overloaded.  This one costs 10 times as much so it's mostly Muzingu and VIPs/diplomats).   We think we're going to stay up around Kwendra Beach on the North West side of the island - 2 hours from Stone Town and I'm supposed to be figuring out transport right now).

On the 17th, we'll leave Zanzibar and then head back to Dar es Salaam to spend the night before our flight out in the early morning on the 18th for Johannesburg and then Victoria Falls in Zimbawae.  We've got a 20 day overland trip booked that will take us into Botswana (to see the Okavango Delta), Nambia (to see the Kalihari Desert and the huge sand dunes among other things) and then through Swaziland (to spend a night with a local tribe) and then into South Africa all the way down the west coast to Cape Town.   We then plan on spending the better part of a week in Cape Town and then will do a self drive up the Garden Route and somehow make our way up to Johannesburg for the flight to Singapore on or about the 27th of January.  If you were paying attention to the dates, we'll be somewhere deep in the swamps of the Okavango on Christmas and we doubt very much we'll see any power let alone internet the entire 20 day trip.  (Its a camping trip, not a hotel one).  

Once we get to Singapore, the current plan is to spend 5 or so days and then make our way up the Malaysian peninsula to Thailand (hitting Phi Phi, Ko Samui and all those places on the way) and then winding along the coast into Cambodia down the Mekong River into Vietnam coming out on the Mekong Delta.  We'll then work our way up Vietnam starting at Saigon (I still refuse to call it Ho Chi Ming City - I'm not much of a socialist!) and up to Hanoi and the North Country.  I'm keen to see a lot of the Vietnam War sites that I've read so much about over the last 40 years (and that I remember from the nightly news my parents would watch).  Then overland into Laos and then back into Thailand to see Chang Mai and then down into Bangkok.  From there, we'll fly into Europe (on or about April 1st).  

Jen's already got her Villa rented in the Loire Valley for the last two weeks of April and the first week of May.   So we're hoping we can spend some time with Macrae and Jillian in Paris around then sometime (before or after) and I also want to spend some time at Normandy, Dieppe and some of the other WW1/WW2 landmarks.  Other than that, we've not got much figured out until our flight out of Madrid for home on the 31st of July.  I suspect we'll go down the east side of the Adriatic through Serajavo, etc to Greece after Italy to conserve the budget but we'll see.  

We're off to hunt for sleeping bags for our camping trip through South Africa.  Bye for now.   

Time flies when you're having....

fun?  Not always, but it's sure been interesting!  Now that we're back from our big splurge on Safari and all the full time attention that required, we've rejoined the normal day to day life around Moshi and have been trying to get the kids back on schedule with the school work and get into some of the "volunteer" work we wanted to do while here.  No pictures this time as we don't feel comfortable taking them in the Orphanages or at the Women's Clinic, so words will have to suffice.

We love the people here, both the expats and the locals, but man can it be frustrating getting even simple things done!  Just a simple trip into town to get a few things for the Women's Clinic can be a two day ordeal.  Our Pamoja Guesthouse is about a mile out of the centre of Moshi.  We have about 3/4 of a kilometer walk on a very rough dirt road beside homes that are either gated and reasonably nice or shacks that would be considerably worse than anything you'd see in Canada - it's interesting how there doesn't seem to be segregation between "nice areas" and "poor areas"...  despite this, we feel perfectly safe and would venture out at night (despite warnings in the guidebooks not to do so|) except for the fact that there are no street lights and power here is very intermittent - we had it for about 8 hours yesterday (which was far worse than average).  They drive like maniacs here and I'd be worried about getting clipped by accident.

The locals never fail to light up with huge smiles when ever you greet them in Swahili (as simple as "Jambo!" (Hi), responded by "Jambo!", or at least 5-6 sentences which we are slowly picking up.  As I've said before, greetings are extremely important here and they really appreciate Muzingu who take the time to learn it.  We've also discovered local shops (there is a guy next door with a small room behind iron grates who will dispense bread ($0.50/loaf), pops ($0.30/bottle), and other usual sundries like fresh eggs (probably from his chickens in his back yard we can hear at all hours - especially the rooster!).  The kids love going over there for a Orange or Purple Fanta (the Purple is sort of like a grape Dr. Pepper - YUCK! But the kids love it).

There are a few ladies down the street that have a table set up and sell local fruits and veggies... so generally, we just buy what we need for the day.  On every second day or so, we run into town to get stuff we need such as more money from the ATM (which only dispenses it in $160 chunks - 400,000 Tanzanian Shillings) or supplies for our project at the Pamoja Women's Clinic.  Even getting something as simple as ziploc bags which we are using to contain the post-partum kits we are putting together is a huge ordeal as 99% of people have never even seen one.  Same goes for safety pins to hold the diapers together!  It seems there is a special store for most items and we've only found two "supermarkets" - and we treat those like gold!

For these kits, we needed to get ziplocs, 2 cloth diapers, an infant baby jumper, a wool hat, some maxipads and then some medical supplies (vitamins, suture kit, surgical gloves).  I think I may have mentioned this but women need to bring these in when they are about to deliver.   We didn't suspect we'd have a tough time finding diapers/safety pins, and thought that the ziplocs/baby jumpers/maxi-pads would present the biggest issue.... but we found an outdoor "mall" called the Memorial Market outside of town that had baby jumpers galore and we were picking up brand name (used) jumpers for 500 shillings each (there are 1700 shillings in a US dollar).  You had to see this market to believe it.  There must have been 300-500 vendors selling stuff at temporary tables (usually covered by a tarp and some temporary roof) with stuff laid out on the ground, on tarps, what ever.  Mostly clothes, but its like the biggest open air bazaar you'd ever seen.  My guess is that this is where most of the stuff you give to Sally Anne eventually ends up.

Maxi-pads were also easy to find and were surprisingly inexpensive although the girl in the store did raise her eyebrows somewhat when Jen told her she wanted to buy 16 large packages of the most absorbent kind.  You could see her thinking... "poor woman"!

Cloth diapers were the biggest surprise.  They cost about 5 times as much as the baby jumpers...  and more than the average woman could make in a day's work...  We have no idea how they afford them.  Even more than the prices of these items, the experience of shopping for them was quite enlightening/frustrating.  The moment we hit the second roundabout in Moshi (the start of the downtown strip), we end up getting tagged with all kinds of touts trying to peddle something.  I'm pretty used to being hassled by street touts but these folks put it into a new league.  They all want to know where you are from (standard old line), then they'll tell you their line about what ever it is they are trying to sell and then when you make it clear you aren't going to buy from them, the continue to walk with you for the rest of your trip, following you into shops and trying to help you decide to buy something from that shop.  We're sure that they work off of some sort of commission  system as a few times, we were walking down the street unmolested (it helps to walk very purposefully in a specific direction and ignore the touts altogether) but the moment we turn to enter a shop, someone would spring off the sidewalk and enter with you and then act as your "assistant".  It's quite frustrating as you know you are going to end up paying more.

I've noticed that they don't do this when you go into the "supermarkets" (basically old style general stores - our Hawkestone General Store would be a "supermarket" here - and in Costa Rica).  I suspect this is because the supermarkets have the prices printed on the items and they use (IBM) cash registers to scan the items on checkout.  We tried to buy some shampoo and a bar of soap at one shop (with a tout "assisting") and they wanted 5000 for the soap and 15000 for a completely generic brand of cheap shampoo.  When we told them no way, they immediately dropped the price on the shampoo to 5000.  That really annoyed us but we politely walked out and then down to a local supermarket where we bought a brand name shampoo in a fancy bottle for 8000.

Unfortunately, this additional "pressure" has made us somewhat reticent to go into town.  It really gets at Jen and I'm not keen on it either.  We know we are representing our country and don't want to be rude, but these folks are SO persistent it's hard not to be.  We've scoped out different ways to enter the town centre without passing by the spots where they sit to pick up their targets.  Its too bad the shop keepers seem to encourage this as I'm sure they'd do a lot more business if their customers didn't feel so much pressure.  We now head into town knowing which banks/stores we want to hit first so we aren't carrying around bags (when you have a bag, you've shown you are willing to buy something - although getting to the ATM also tells them you CAN buy something).  Then we call for a taxi in our last store (the SIM card I bought for my BlackBerry has been a godsend in more ways than one) and put all the stuff in the car and head home directly.  It sure makes you appreciate the super stores back home!

The last few days, we've been doing school work and shopping as well as acting as nurses for the doctors at two different orphanages as they were doing general checkups.  Jen and I would set up an assembly line where I'd measure their height, arm circumference and weight while Jen would create a small school booklet with their name, sex, date of birth, etc.  Then we'd send the kids off to see one of the doctors for a checkup.  Most of the kids were fine, but many of them had fungal infections in their hair or skin that left untreated could leave disfiguration that could result in bald patches or scars on their faces.  They are also checking on the teenage girls pretty heavily as they are mostly all anemic.  They then schedule secondary checks the next day.  We've seen about 30-40 kids at each of the orphanages and we have another one next week.  While Jen and I are doing this, Rachel and Shawn play with the kids to keep them out of the doctor's equipment.

We've found that they are exceptionally well behaved when it comes to following instructions.  We could give them their booklet and ask them to go to the doctors, and they'd wait there patiently for up to half an hour for their turn.  In North America, the kids would be bouncing off the walls.  The ones we haven't seen yet, or have already been through would play games.  The first day, Rachel and Shawn would play soccer or   a game that the kids played (boys against the girls passing the ball to each other).  Rachel has really been missing the team sports so really enjoyed this.  We've made it a point to bring a new soccer ball to each of the orphanages as we've come and it's been a big hit.

Yesterday, the kids had a sand pile (not much more than a sandbox without sides) and two bags of sand piled on top of each other.  They'd run at the sand bags and then use them as a launching pad to do flips and cartwheels of amazing dexterity.  We were quite impressed by how they'd amuse themselves.   The kids are also picking up that each of the kids doesn't have anything... as you'll often see boys wearing pink crocs or shirts with female specific sayings on them... or girls with pants and boys clothes.  As all school kids here HAVE to have their heads shaved, its really tough to tell the young girls from the boys - especially when they are all cross dressing with what ever fits.

We've loved working with them but are under no illusions that we are changing the world.  These poor kids are coming from so far behind, they'll likely never have anything even the most poor Canadian would take for granted.   I was transcribing from the Orphanage records yesterday to make our lists, and they listed the parents of these kids.  About half were orphans with no known parents, the other half had either a mother or  2 parents that were separated.  Its quite sad to see whole families there.  In many cases, the family breaks up and neither parent is able or willing to care for them.  At the orphanage at least they are getting some meals, a place to stay and the opportunity to go to school (if someone donates a school uniform and shoes for them).   If they make it to secondary school (they start primary school at age 7 so go until they are 15 or so and then move to secondary school for 4 years), they will learn some English but most know basic greetings and answers to questions like "what is your name/age?"

We're here in Tanzania for another month and have been trying to figure out how long we should stay here but we know we'll be here for at least the next 10 days or so.  While its frustrating, the smiles of the Tanzanian people and kids, make it all worthwhile.  There are so many issues here its frustrating because the system is so busted its hard to figure out what needs to happen to fix it all.

Free and fair elections would be a good start.  The last bunch apparently the government went around on such a spending spree buying votes that its out of money now.  Between the government and the NGO's siphoning off the aid, very little of it is reaching down to the people who need it the most.  We're very conscious of not doing things that take away other peoples (potential) jobs but it also seems that the folks who do have jobs are all on a union time card system as they seem to spend as much time finding ways to avoid work as doing it.  We're told that this is endemic here and that once they become adults and get a job, they feel entitled and then don't push for change or to get ahead.  Teachers are especially bad as they make nothing and rely upon volunteers to do most of the heavy lifting but then don't carry on any best practices.

The one exception I've seen is the local ditch diggers (they are putting in sewage pipes along the streets|).  These guys are digging a 4' deep trench along the side roads by hand with shovels and picks.  You see these guys hard at it all day long.  Their stamina is very impressive.  None of them weighs more than 120 lbs.  The soil here is rock hard and they are also digging up some very large boulders.  Its great to see them putting in sewage pipes.  Hopefully garbage collection is next.  They seem to dig deep holes anywhere (the middle of the street is OK), and dump stuff in that they can't burn - water bottles, cans, etc.) and fill them up until its about 1' from the surface and then start another hole.  Everyone has a fire going in their backyard (or in the ditch in front of their house) to burn garbage.  At least it keeps the mosquitoes away!

Power here is pretty intermittent and the internet connection was down for 36 hours because something happened to some tower somewhere.  Until they can get reliable infrastructure, any business would be nuts to set up here even if they had a decent education system (which they don't).  A lot of people think the government actually tries to keep the infrastructure back as it helps them keep the people under control.  This is a democracy but there is a large block on Zanzibar that votes uniformly (Muslim) and they have the most seats and therefore the levers of power.  Until they have a (peaceful) change of government with some competition, I'm not sure things will ever change.  For sure the NGO's aren't helping much as most of the money seems to go into providing the expat NGO supported workers with nice homes/cars etc rather than into the people who really need it.  That's one of the reasons we are so taken with what is happening at these orphanages and at the Pamoja Women's Clinic.  They are really run by people without ties to the NGO's and are doing things on a shoestring directly for the people who need it most.

These folks really are saints and make us feel very humble indeed.  I'm glad our kids are getting a chance to see this as its starting to sink in how lucky they are - which was our main reason for doing this in the first place (we aren't under any impression that any work we are doing will make a significant difference beyond easing our consciences a bit).  We'll certainly never forget the advantages we have as Canadian's.  This is nothing WE did.... we were just lucky enough to be born Canadian.  It makes our problems seem rather insignificant in comparison.  You always "know" that, but living this, really drives it home.

We just watched our first big downpour here... it lasted about 20 minutes and came down pretty hard but now is clearing up so we're heading into town to pick up some supplies for ourselves and the guesthouse/women's clinic.  Wish us luck!

Pamoja Women's Clinic

We’d offered to help anyway we could and Dr. Mino offered to give us a tour so we got up and walked down the dusty road to through the slums to the clinic about 8-9 blocks from here.  We arrived at this nice white house, and were ushered into the clinic as honoured guests.  It hasn’t opened again yet (this week sometime)  so we got to crawl around a bit.  Looks like it will be a step up from what we saw in Costa Rica.

Jen and Rachel spent the morning putting together kits for expectant mothers and inventorying what we’ll buy tomorrow to leave them in good shape.  Apparently mothers have to buy their own suture kits and surgical gloves.  These kits will have knit hats for the babies, some jumpers, maxi pads for the mothers, a few diapers and some post natal vitamins.  The plan it to give these out in exchange for a prenatal visit that will check for the presence of HIV so they can get the mothers on the right drugs prior to the baby’s birth.  

It’s a worthy cause so we’ve offered to pick up a bunch of the supplies to create a bunch of these kits.

They then also spent the better part of the afternoon acting as computer printers.  Nobody has printers or photocopiers here so they created 162 inventory sheets for the various drugs and supplies they need.  Shawn and I played at being Pharmacists and dispensed hundreds of small bags of medications as the local staff is useless at counting out pills so they wanted prepackaged amounts of highly used drugs they could just hand out.  We got to learn about all kinds of drugs.  We had a lunch at a local canteen (Dr. Mino and the 4 of us).  With tip, it came to less than $4 for all of us.  Finally a place that exceeds our budget requirements!!!  The food was quite good to boot.

Then back to the guest house for some schooling for the kids and time for me to sort out the internet issue and get caught up on the blog.  We have been having some fun with the internet here and our access to our bank has been shut off due to repeated attempts at access (not by us).  We will get it sorted out but the 8 hour time difference is playing havoc.  Jen is also looking forward into Europe and Asia to figure out our next stops.  Phew…  10 days in one.  That is where we are now… safe and sound back in Moshi, trying to do some volunteering and figuring out our next steps.  Love to all!