And so, I am back home with tons of delicious butterfly kisses. It’s winter season here which, gasp, means cooler nights and, tada, less mosquitoes (although the buggers still got me my first week here). I am loaded with a wok pan which I schlepped from NY, a couple lemon/pepper spice tins, a few African panos, my iPod dock, baby wipes, and 70lbs worth of clothes and toiletries (Ellin Lavar’s liquidmotion goes with me wherever I go).
I am so ready for round II.
Don’t go picturing Naomi Campbell in designer-wear strutting her 3-inch heels picking up trash in New York City. This was real community work as in 1980s Land Rover a la Indiana Jones (the one with seating for 8 – or 12 – in the back, two benches facing each other), jeans and Pumas, bag-full of bread and Cadbury for snacking, hole-ridden side roads, red dirt everywhere, and then out of nowhere a community jango sprouts.
You should never plan going to the Roque Santero too far in advance. The biggest open air market in Africa could potentially, maybe, perhaps, be a little intimidating, especially due to the raving reviews (read: “Don’t go to the Roque, it’s dangerous, you will find human heads on sticks”). So, with this in mind, the best was to just…go. I mean, I was here in Angola, how could I not?
Small glitch in my plans, however, was the absolutely-no-camera-allowed unwritten rule, which means, you only have my memory and these words to live through what I did…an absolute African anthropological experience. A few snapshots:
· Law of Attraction is in full effect. The energy you put out, is what you will receive. We were three (two guys and moi), all somewhat white in an ocean of beautiful black bodies, but we blended. We stopped to buy jinguba (peanuts), got some recipes from the vegetable ladies, tried negotiating for my panos, and danced among the piles of used clothes…ok, no one else was dancing, but we got some chuckles
· Picture of the day: an old lone “costurero” (tailor) at his sewing machine surrounded by nothing except burning trash and red dirt
· An entire section just for pots...piles and piles of them. One was big enough for me to sit in, comfortably.
· Women making steaming funge in huge pots among barefoot children, a stray dog or two, street vendors and a lot of dust
· Man frying jinguba with sand (“from our own beach down there”) for “a better taste”
· Meats…you could really see poverty in this section. Every table had just a few cuts (guts, stomach, liver), no hanging carcasses, flies galore
· Curious children everywhere, stuck to us like gum in hair
· I am now officially “gostosa,” “amorzinho”, “maezinha,” and “fofa.”
· Pano section: colors, colors, colors, colors…seemed like an oasis of vibrancy against a rather desolate and dry setting
· We were almost run over (often) by little carts that squeezed through the tight little aisles
· Almost stopped to watch a movie…in big army green tents that hosted wooden benches and a large TV from the 1980s. Just fantastic.
…and then, after almost three hours of walking among dirt, burnt trash, with arms loaded with panos and idiotic smiles on our faces, we drank the most incredible liquid I have ever tasted. Coca Cola. Straight from the can.
Quote of the week: “Quem não tem cão, caça com gatos.” (He who doesn’t have dogs, hunts with cats). Africa, the land of adaptation.
When the light changes, Angola becomes a different watercolor all together.
- The soil is red in Angola. Rich in oxidized iron. Chemistry 101.
- Rainy season has started in Luanda…officially and tangibly. On Saturday, in one hour, the city flooded after a highly intimidating graying sky. Rain shoes - no matter what you wear, it’s not enough.
- Luanda carries my favorite sunscreen – Garnier’s Ambre Solaire, Clear SPF 20. Not yet FDA-approved in the US. I love this country.
- New Development Workshop homepage is almost up. Take one last look before I blow your minds http://dw.angonet.org/.
- My recent DW project obsession is ONDAKA – an adult literacy program that publishes a monthly bulletin compiled by local communities, primarily in the Huambo province, that acts as a platform for peaceful dialogue. There is a tremendous will in Angola to avoid conflict and educate younger generations on the importance of stability.
- I continue being a firm believer that women multitask better than men.
Angolan women: carry a bucket of water, or fish, or shoes, or mandioc, or bananas, or gasoline on their heads, a baby on their back, plastic bags on their arms, and rearrange their pano whenever necessary
Angolan men: just walk, with nothing…next to the women
- Went sailing this weekend for the first time in my life. My body looks like I fell down a flight of stairs…and then another. It was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done (after climbing Masada at 4am)
Kitchen update: not done yet, but almost there…or so they say
Quote of the week: Mother to her son eating ice cream, “Is it ok? Not too cold?” Classic.
The office smells like the fresh bread I just bought at the bakery, and I have one month left in this beauty of a country.
I have landed in Angola. After two days of travel (including the ultimate baby-crying-in-airplane-for-15-hours experience), a stint in Jo'burg (where I definitely overpaid the guy helping me with my suitcases) and a diet composed of challah and ginger tea, I landed in the tropics. The moment tiny droplets of sweat started forming on my nose, I was happy…and I haven't stopped being happy since.
As many of you know, I am volunteering/consulting/interning for Development Workshop, an incredibly dynamic non profit that has been in Angola since 1981…My initial charge has been to update the website ("actualizar o website") and develop informational pamphlets ("panfletos") for the world to see…all my photoshop and editing experience is coming into exquisite use…and yes, I am already working in Portuguese. Half the time I feel like I'm speaking some version of Spanish-French-Italian…it's awesome. More on work front soon.
And so, without further adieu, here are some highlights (trying to keep it short, so I can keep my fan base going strong for the next three months):
· I have a chain and lock on my door. Yes. And some random guy rang the doorbell at 4:30am the other day looking for a steak sandwich. I told him we don't start serving until 10am. Thank G-d for locks.
· Our family friend, Cara, lives here in Luanda which means: instant social life, fantastic beaches, incredible dinners with wine (Portuguese, alas, but still…), and tons of girl talk
· Luanda Day was on Friday, but the whole city did not find out whether it was going to be a holiday or not until Thursday night.
· People here have the most beautiful smiles, the capacity to carry A LOT of weight on their heads, and a booming grayish market money exchange operation
· Grapes cost $50 per kilo…kiwis are close
· I have tasted some of the most delicious food…"funge" (corn-based similar to mashed potatoes), "gallinha" (wild/local chicken), "jimboa" (green, spinach-like yumminess), and of course, a ridiculous amount of mango juice
· The long tunics and pants I wear day in day out are last season here…women look at me like I have no sense of style. Moi?? I am fast becoming the proud owner of many "panos" (pareos)…
Skype is becoming my closest friend…after gmail. Hint hint hint.
It is a problem that some experts and aid groups feel will get worse if the European Union introduces its "blue card" scheme to encourage skilled migration, which could also drain trained medical staff and nurses from poor countries.
In a way, I was mislead by the title of the article as my hopes were high to read a miraculous recipe, some innovative idea. Nothing yet. It prompted me to the following reflection:
Perhaps the problem has to be stated differently: health can not be isolated from education, housing, food security, employment, micro-finance, literacy... Poverty has to be tackled as a whole - with its many components - and governments of poor countries have to be the main protagonists of their own development. They have to be the core signatories of their own Millennium Development Goals. Goals that are realistic and that they assume full ownership, responsibility and accountability for. With the strong support, participation and even monitoring by the rest of the world - the rich countries and international organizations - within the frame of a world alliance.
Images speak... Lunchtime at the Centro del Muchacho Trabajador where hundreds of mainly indigenous streetchildren and their families gather every day to receive a free lunch. Sometimes, this is the only meal they have for the day. The CMT also provides many other services to these communities: education, health, adult literacy, day care center, recreation and of course food and nutrition. Kids learn at convenient times, when they take a break from their street activities. Take a look at the pictures by clicking here.
Let me start this communiqué with the Walk of Shame. I was walking home from Mugeza (the Bukoba suburb that sits on a hill about 8km away from the city) last week, my cheeks burning partly from the 88 degree heat but mostly from the shame that I was feeling. I took the dalah-dalah (bus) up to the disabled school and was unable to accomplish any of the things that I had set out to do up there. Because of the language barrier it was impossible for me to organize the children, either individually or in groups! I hung out for about an hour, chatting (mostly just greeting everyone and laughing and smiling and giving high-fives) but to get anyone to listen to me proved impossible. Even the teachers who speak extremely limited English could be of no help. I was so embarrassed and upset that I was on the verge of tears for the first leg of my march back to the city. I had two hours to sort things through in my head all the way back to Bukoba and part of my calm was delivered to me by an amazing woman who spoke no English at all. I met this woman about half way down to Bukoba town and we fell into step. I was happy to have a companion for the remainder of the walk as I was feeling very lonely and sad and once we had exchanged all of the pleasantries that I know in Swahili and I had told her my name (she never told me hers) we had a series of comfortable silences that I found as inviting and peaceful as a hug from my Momma. When she had arrived at her destination which was a few minutes from my own, I had the equivalent of 2 dollars for her in my palm as a shook her hand and thanked her for her company. She has no idea how much I appreciated her, but considering a well paid housekeeper makes around 20$ a month here, I think I gave her some indication.
When I arrived at Raza's home we agreed that one wonderful and rewarding project for next Sunday would be to take all of the disabled children on a picnic at the beach if they cleaned their dorms and bathrooms first on Saturday.
Upon arrival at the disabled school in Mugeza on Saturday we were greeted by a wonderful teacher who told us that the other teachers were in the city for the day renewing their teaching certifications and that they would be gone all day and the cleaning could not happen that day. I pretended to be disappointed and even a bit angry but thinking quickly I struck a deal: when the teachers return, they must recruit the students to help in the cleaning of the dormitories and the restrooms (concrete blocks with a squat hole) and I will return the following day and inspect their work and if I am satisfied I will take them all on a picnic at the beach. The teacher said it would be done so we left.
Sunday morning I was told that the transportation that had been arranged would be at Raza's petrol station at 9am. I asked if this meant 9am Bukoba time or New York time and Raza laughed and assured me that although the driver was African he would be sure to let him know that there was a mzungu (white person) waiting for him so that he should not be late.
At 11am we are finally in the truck en route to Mugeza. I am sitting in the front of a flat bed truck that is used for shipping cargo with the three orphans Hussein, Abdullah and Hamza (who like to go everywhere with people and are the most active people in Bukoba!) and I fear for my life. The roads are very bad but the driver is speeding out of control and I know there are no shocks or seat belts in the front and I cringe to think of what the disabled children are going to do in the back! We get to the school and none of the teachers or students seem very surprised that their transportation looks more appropriate for moving crates of soda than disabled children, so I pretend that I am okay with it as well. It seems that this is the way that they are hauled around when going anywhere together. Laughable when you think about 'short buses' with those elevators that go down to the sidewalk and the slowly come back up again. Have you ever felt like just picking up the wheelchair- or crutch-bound person and sitting them in the bus in order to speed things up? Well that is exactly what we did, and while some of them were not easy to lift, most of them are small children and I could just follow the lead of the others and hoist them up onto the flat bed and direct them to a relatively safe area, much less time consuming than those elevators! Most could get in with a small boost and climb up but several were just passed in like sacks of potatoes.
I inspected the dorms and the restrooms and they were very clean with all of the beds made and the mosquito nets tied nicely. Although the women's dorm still had a faint smell of urine the teacher said that that was permanent and she didn't know what it was from (it was worse the last time I was there, so at least there was improvement!) and I said that I was satisfied so we loaded the kids into the truck along with the Head Mother and Father who mentioned that some of the children were still on holiday.
I then came up with the brilliant suggestion that we count the children and there were fifty-six of them plus the Mother and Father and the teacher and I sat in the front with the three boys. I am not ashamed to admit that I was too chicken to ride that flatbed. Fortunately because of the weight of the load and the bad roads, the driver was forced to go very slowly (1st gear) all the way down to the beach (and on the way back our load was so heavy again that he had to go slowly or the truck would not have made it up), whew!
We got to
I was so proud of these children and their bravery as well as their natural ability to take care of each other and themselves. They hung their own we clothes out to dry, loaning each other wet shirts and clothes for swimming to keep maximum clothing dry. Also it was so sweet to see who takes care of whom, for example there is one girl who is mentally handicapped and she is the guardian of these two girls who are blind. Another girl who has just had eye surgery and now can see is always giving a piggy-back ride to another girl who has extremely stunted growth and deformed legs and takes a long time to get around on her crutches because she is about 2 feet tall. Another thing that was so amazing was seeing the children who have club foot or other leg deformations running in the sand! They have a hard time getting around on land because if their toes are pointing to the sky and completely externally rotated they are walking on a very sharp point at the end of their leg that is like a heal. This is painful and typically they cannot put all of their weight down on that leg (in many cases it is both legs that are affected) but on sand this problem is much less severe and they were running around. It doesn't hurt to fall on sand like it does to fall on packed earth so all of the children seemed a little more carefree.
At 2:30pm the driver came back to the beach to get us (because I made sure that he knew he was supposed to be there at 2) and we loaded the kids onto the flat bed and headed over to IZAAS where some of the older orphan girls along with 2 of the women who work for Raza and Mama had cooked a lovely dish of pilau with meat and rice, veggies, potatoes, onions and tomatoes and spices as usual.
Interestingly the disabled children have very different eating habits from the orphans. Partly because they are used to being catered to due to their various disabilities and partly because they are fed regularly and are never worried where their next meal is coming from. Another thing that I noticed was a group of sulky girls who sat at the back and didn't eat, some of them eventually decided to start crying. It took a long time for it to be explained to me that these girls are vegetarians and would not touch the pilau. I was surprised but impressed and began to wonder what kind of gourmet food they are served up at their school that they can afford to be so picky. Mama cooked them some plain rice and gave them bread and fruits and the salad that was served to everyone and then I distributed the sodas and the children were happy (sort of). If you want to make a child happy, give them soda.
Around 6 we loaded back up to return, the children seemingly grateful that such a tiring, if not exciting, day was coming to an end. I caught a glimpse of us in a store front window and it was so comical looking that I was not surprised when the police man pulled us over at the permanent police check point at the outskirts of town. He asked where we were going and the driver said "Mugeza". "Carry on then." As though he saw nothing wrong with 58 people riding the back of a flat bed truck up a hill where there are basically no roads! To me we looked like a cross between someone shuttling Mexicans across the
It was such a positive experience for the children and for myself I was on cloud nine the entire way home. Much different from my walk on Friday! It turns out that the last time they had a group outing like that was a full year ago. I felt so badly for them when I heard that and it is such an easy thing to organize. It only took a little initiative and a very little bit of cash. The total cost for a day at the beach including truck and driver, lunch for 60, petrol for Ruta's vehicle and soap and cleaning supplies was less than 150 USD. Best money I have ever spent. Seriously, I feel like if they only get this type of opportunity once a year, they will remember it for a long time!
One of the projects that I would love to organize for the children is the purchase of a vehicle similar to the one that we used to bring them down to the beach. It would be between 10 and 15,000 USD and enable them to go on outings whenever the teachers (who loved the distraction and change of scenery as well!) decide to take them, they could go to town, or visit other disabled schools, go to the beach and the fisheries, I feel like it would be a very worthwhile project.
After spending quite a bit of time up in Mugeza at the disabled school and getting to know the staff and children quite well, I have narrowed my focus to some very worthwhile projects that are tangible and varying in size and difficulty to achieve. I think that this is the best way to go about it because I really have no idea what my capacity to raise funds will be (I have never tried it before the efforts for this trip) but I hope to succeed because these projects will be very impactful on the lives of many children who do not have it easy. There is one girl who I have gotten especially close with whose name is Antoinette. Her story is so sad and relates the difficulty that these children have been suffering since birth. Although some of them have better relationships with their parents than this particular girl, she is a very good example of what happens here when a child is seen to be handicapped in any way (mentally or physically). Antoinette crawls. Her family has no interest in purchasing a wheelchair for her because they have decided that she is not fit to live. When she was a baby and her limbs began to grow crooked and she did not start walking her parents were confused but ignorant and so they did not seek medical attention (more common here than not). Once they figured out what was going on with her, they decided that she was not fit to live and so they stopped feeding her and caring for her. She was dirty to the point where she had to have some of her nails removed due to fungus as well as starving and had been eating grass when she was brought to Raza (it was unclear by whom, I will assume some sympathetic villager as is often the case). He decided to sponsor her entry into the disabled school and that is where she now lives. He mentioned to me that she never smiles and if I could get her to smile that would be an amazing accomplishment in itself. Well she is such a cutie, and while it was difficult to get her to smile at first, she warmed up to me eventually and now she smiles almost freely at me when I greet her. I think it may be my Swahili that she is smiling at because it is so bad and very crudely accented, but whatever works, right?!
There are 4 children at the school who need wheelchairs but do not have the funds to purchase any, and so they crawl. Even the ones who have wheelchairs have very old ones that have been abused over time and are breaking down, but at least they can move around upright. I would like to get wheelchairs for the children who have to crawl like Antoinette.
I was mistaken when I said that there were a handful of blind students. There are twenty-eight and more are expected next year. Not all of them live in the dorms at Mugeza and that is why I underestimated their numbers. The school is actually an integrated school with disabled and able bodied children who live locally. I now know that several of the blind children live at home but there are a fair number living in the dorms. For these 28 children there are 4 functioning Braille Writers. The teachers, Mussa and Tabu (the one who was at the beach outing with me) who live at the school can both read Braille and have been trained to teach the blind, among other specialties. I loved watching Mussa read the Braille with his eyes: that was so cool! The Braille writers that they currently have were made in
In truth they are not miserable, and it is nice to see them enjoying themselves and hanging out with each other, taking on leadership rolls where they can and always lending a helping hand to one another. When I dropped them off after the picnic they were happy to be home and were singing to me as I walked down the road. It is just sad to see that less than a mile away there is the school for the Deaf and Dumb that is run by nuns (not the government) and is SO MUCH better. The children at Mugeza live in two dorms one for the boys and one for the girls. At lunch they eat ogali--wheat or maize paste that has the consistency of cream of wheat cereal cooked without enough water that is sticky and gummy (in fact that is what it is!). It is also perfect for food fights, but they never play with their food (I guess when you have to eat with your hands, the temptation is somewhat diminished) and they get red beans with that. At dinner they have rice with the same beans. Twice a week they have mtoke (the green cooking banana that I have described) with beans and then the same for dinner with rice. I was surprised with the quantity of pilau leftover after the outing but they are in a very different situation than the orphans, because they are fed on a very regular schedule and although it is not gourmet food, it counts.
The acquisition of a flat bed truck for the IZAAS program could really benefit the disabled school as well as the orphans. Raza has assured me that if something is purchased for the school itself and kept at Mugeza than thieves will come and if I return in a year to see what has become of the truck, all that will be left is a shell. He is realistic on most counts and, because I have no frame of reference, I would be inclined to trust his judgment on that. He employs a night watchman who sits in front of these apartment/shops and said that a truck would be safe there (he has two of his own SUV's in the same location) and that it would be used for the right purposes.
The need is so great that there are many more people who can be helped by operations and the purchase of crutches but for several reasons, for example the unreliable medical care here coupled with the complete lack of aftercare, I feel that these three projects would be a great start. These are what I see as the short term needs of the school for the disabled:
• 3 wheelchairs
• several more Braille writers (25 would be ideal but I have no idea how realistic)
• hundreds more packages of Braille paper because they never go out of style
• and a flat bed truck for outings to add fun into the lives of these children
Who's with me?
Last Friday, after the giant feast at the orphanage, I decided to visit some of the children's homes. It was very interesting and so this past week on Friday again, when they are well fed and energized and are excited because they have no school, I told them that I wanted to do the same. It was decided that I would go to a particular neighborhood Kashai, which is located behind the airport and where several of them are from. When we finished our Friday feast, often the only full and nutritious meal that the kids know they can count on during the whole week, we began the home visits. As usual there were some hangers-on from other hoods who were just there for the trip and to hang out: I am having so much fun with these kids! I know that I came here to spend most of my time with the disabled children up in Mugeza, but it has been so difficult for me to organize and communicate with them because of the language barrier that it seems as though I am spending much more time than I had originally anticipated with the orphans. I have been planning a large outing with the disabled children on Sunday so if all goes well (or not, which always makes for better stories somehow!) my next article will be about them.
Raza chose Kashai because it is known as a rough sort of place in this small, peaceful town. I wonder how he would feel about my old 'hood in
Most families have more than four children with extra children around the house making it hard to decipher where they belonged, but one thing is for sure, there was very little adult supervision, if any. Seeing a group of three- and four-year-olds hanging out by themselves behind a building or under a tree with an older sibling, maybe two years older, but charged with watching them is a very common occurrence. This also clarifies another question that I brought up in an earlier article about the small, avoidable injuries becoming major disabilities, for example the hand burn victims. Siblings and peers just don't watch as closely as a parent would, although they make fine short term babysitters they do come up with some very typically childish games that are risky at best. The other day I was in a very large truck (more on that later) driving down a bumpy highway and there was a 4 year old child who had made a kind of wagon by cutting open one side of an old plastic oil can and attaching a rope to the handle. He was dragging his baby sister who was a few months away from walking age along the road, the 'highway.' When the children noticed the truck coming they ran and he forgot to pull the can/baby so she was sitting in the middle of the road as we were barring down on her and finally she was pulled away.
Back to the home visits. These children are living in such severe poverty that it was very sad to see. They are laughing and skipping and can't wait to get home to their families, but I can see why the IZAAS orphan program is such a positive experience for them. I saw several of their peers just hanging around with nothing to do or causing trouble, while these children that Raza has 'adopted' into the program are very well behaved and have a positive environment to hang out in after school and where they make friends who have similar interests. In one of the homes that I visited there was a front room that contained a desk and a chair, but besides that house none of the children have a place within their home to study. They will either be outside or not studying. None of them have electricity, so night reading and study is impossible.
At one of the homes there were two adorable sisters at home with their mother and older brother. They were sitting in a front room and I asked for the grand tour which included a back room separated by a very dirty curtain. In the back room there was a little boy sleeping (the brother said "baby is sleeping") on a mattress on the floor but then I noticed a tiny lump in the bed that was pushed up to the other wall. Tiny little baby who was 3 weeks old. So cute! Of course when your house contains two young girls, two boys, one teenager and one toddler as well as a mommy and a tiny baby, the sleeping arrangements become very interesting. It was hard to figure out but one thing is for sure, none of these children have the luxury of a bed to themselves. I know how I felt growing up about the impossibly of sharing a room but I could not imagine ever being forced to have my entire family share my room (although the room that I called my own from age 3- 19 is actually bigger than any of the entire houses that I have visited here in Bukoba!).
Of the houses I visited this week, all had at least one parent or guardian at home, except for one situation. Annette's house was the last house that I visited and I met her adorable younger brother who was sitting on the stoop. Their house is very dark and part of a single structure with multiple entries which presumably house other families. There is a rear exit to the area that they would call a bathroom and shower but as in all of the other situations it is just a muddy patch with a semi-private enclosure of hand-woven dried palm fronds and a gas can full of water next to an empty large plastic bowl. This house seemed very dark and the ceilings were extremely low. The two children were the only ones in the family and shared a private room while their parents had their own room. There were a total of three beds and three mosquito nets. I was impressed so I asked where her parents were. It turns out that her father was just admitted into the hospital in another city four days ago (most likely HIV/AIDS) and the mother went to accompany him. "When will they be back?" I asked stupidly and I was met with a blank stare. Clearly they are gone for an unknown period of time. What will you do in the mean time for food, money, etc? Well I was proudly escorted back outside the house where I had not noticed but the brother was selling things on a table, mini-piles of 4 tomatoes for 50 cents and they were beginning to wrinkle. I can only assume that the mother left them with some things to sell, quickly approaching worthlessness. How will these children fend for themselves? I bought a bunch of tomatoes and distributed them to the 3 children who were my escorts home. I also gave the little brother the extra pack of roasted nuts that I had bought for all of the children who were escorting me around (at one point when I saw that one of the orphans whose home we had just visited had later set up a low table where she sold these little roasted peanuts in newspaper rolls for five cents a bag). I went back later in the day with two huge avocados and some almonds (from
It is amazing to see in action all of the good training that they orphan program has provided for the older children involved. They are extremely responsible for the younger ones and those who are natural leaders have plenty of opportunity to shine. For the girls, a group of six of them were recruited by Mama to help make the food (same style pilau) for the disabled outing that I sponsored on Sunday. They did a very good job and were rewarded by being able to eat as much as they could of the food once all of the work was done. They cooked, cleaned, boiled, chopped, stirred, distributed and cleaned every dish and the entire room after the outing. They have not only learned good manners and school smarts but cooking and cleaning as well. My final impressions about the IZAAS drop-in orphan program is that it caters to a huge need here in Bukoba and it is a very well run program. The children learn amazing life skills and create bonds with their peers who have similar interests. They are all attending the program out of their own free will and each have at least one sibling who does not attend, proving the fact that they could just as easily stay at home or hang out on the streets. Raza helps the families with money for these children's school fees and provides them with a positive, healthy learning environment and they love it. I feel so lucky that I have been invited with such open arms into each one of their homes, their families were very welcoming and happy to have had pictures taken of them and not one of them was at all unhappy to have me come into the house and look around. It was also a great bonding experience between myself and the children to have me come and see where they live, instead of just being some strange woman who plays Pictionary with them in the afternoons!
Besides carrying a letter from the head of the village explaining that the man in charge was responsible on behalf of this village elder and extending warm greetings and thanks, these people carried nothing with them. Not a bag or a bite to eat. It is not a rich village and they could not afford to pay for their dalah-dalah ride to Bukoba but they somehow arranged with the driver (or waited until they found a driver who was satisfied with the arrangement), that Raza would pay for their fare upon arrival because he had been known to help the disabled. Keep in mind Raza had not heard of their coming or plans at all.
Upon their arrival, the leader paid and was happy to see the man that he had helped walking proudly into his shop after so many years. One woman had elephantitis of the legs with huge feet and calves. Another woman had a severe club foot and was using crutches that were for a child- they were so small! In fact when she heard that she could have an operation to fix her club foot she actually requested that the foot be amputated so that she could have a nice new limb like her friend! Raza and I strongly discouraged that, and we tried to explain that you are better off fixing and keeping your own body parts. A third woman had a very short leg and crawled in crab-like walk because she never was given crutches. Her smaller leg is perfectly formed, just miniature. It ends at about the knee of her regular sized leg. One man was holding a 6 month old baby who had swelling of the brain so severely that she could not hold her own head up. The final woman was an amputee due to gangrene at her mid-calf. She used a stick diagonally across her body wrapped around her involved leg in a hop-sort of walk. The final person to come in was a woman holding a club foot baby. Once her husband realized that the baby was handicapped he left her and now she is living with an old woman in the village.
Raza is sending them all to
Each morning I jog from my apartment down the main street of Bukoba town down to the
The locals eat Mtoke which is also know as a cooking banana. I know what you are all thinking, "plantains!" Well that is what I thought too, but could not have been more wrong. The skins of these bananas are bright green when they are ripe but they are not very sweet at all. Instead they have the consistency and flavor that is probably best compared to that of a potato. The Tanzanians cook them in water with spices and serve them with a few beans. Typically a huge bushel of them costs around 5 dollars and feeds a large family for a week. They eat their food off of one communal plate and with their hands. There is also an abundance of fruit and veggies for me to eat, but typically the locals stick to Mtoke because it is cheap, readily available, high in energy and quite filling!
Raza's wife Mama is an amazing cook and they have me over for lunch or dinner almost every day to ensure that I have at least one hot meal. They are both of Indian origin but both are Tazanian natives so the food is an amazingly delicious mix of Indian and local African. There are several types of bananas eaten here, a typically sweet one that is cooked like a sweet plantain similar to the Mexican and Cuban style as well as a medium size banana like in
The mornings are usually spent taking care of personal matters, for example laundry (by hand and dried on a line), email (twice a week but over a connection as slow as molasses running uphill when it is working), going to the market to buy fruit or veggies (every two days because I have neither fridge nor Tupperware to preserve things in and my outdoor kitchen ensures that the bugs help themselves). During the daytime so far I have been doing different things based on Raza's suggestions and I will later write about the goings-ons at IZAAS during a typical week. Basically I spend that time observing what goes on around the IZAAS medical project which has a rhythm to it, although it is chaotic, and takes up most of my day. At around 5 on week days I will head over to the orphan center and play some games with them, typically the boys chase the tennis ball that Matthew was kind enough to leave with me, while the girls hold my hand and touch my hair and work up the courage to smile at me and laugh with me. They are very shy girls and the boys are for the most part, crazy. They are so cute and I have become very attached to them all, especially the one whose houses I have visited.
Their circumstances are all very unique but for the most party they live with relatives in tiny and not child-proofed homes without electricity or running water. In all cases there were other children at home during the times of my visit who were of school age but not attending school due to lack of money and the necessity of working to provide income to feed the family. The orphans are supported financially by Raza and the IZASS project for school purposes but not all of the children attend his program. The smart and dedicated ones do. Tin roofs and mud walls are the norm and there are absolutely no frills or personal space. Most sleep two to a bed but some have more, and there is not one situation that I have seen where the road that they travel on to get to these homes is not covered in garbage. Some good news is that they seem to all have mosquito nets over their beds due to a very successful educational campaign that occurred here a number of years ago. The other good news is that these children have Raza's program to go to every weekday afternoon in order to have a positive influence and a clean safe and positive environment to learn in and to play in. They have been so receptive to me and every day that I do not come by the drop in center I hear about it from them and their teacher. Amazing how far the game of Pictionary can go! Because my Swahili is not very good and their English is about as proficient, Pictionary has become our favorite game by default.
Every few days I go up to Mugeza, where the disabled children's' school is and I also head over to the "deaf and dumb" school. With the exception of a handful, the disabled children were with their families until yesterday when they returned to the school, there was some kind of holiday, but that worked out quite well because I was able to establish a rapport with some of the girls making me seem like an old friend returning to hang out with them as opposed to a stranger coming to tell them what to do. For the remainder of my stay in Bukoba I will be heading up there daily in order to do physical activity with them based on their individual needs. Mostly it will be basic exercises for those who can and just playing and having fun rolling around in the grass. Although I have not helped the disabled children with their physical needs as much as I hoped that I could by working with them for a month, I have seen what goes on behind the scenes of IZAAS and have been working with Raza on a plan that hopefully will improve their lives for the future.
My evenings are very quiet, on the nights when I am not eating with Raza and Mama (they tend to eat quite late so I opt out of dinner more often than not) I am in my apartment by 8 or so in order to beat the malaria mosquitoes to the punch (I hear they love you more when you eat bananas so I think I would be in trouble if I didn't!), then I write in my travel journal and plan out my blog articles and I spend some time reading under my mosquito net before I nod off. My apartment is part of the building that Raza grew up in and was left to him by his father. Also a great philanthropist, Mr. Fazal was a family man and built 4 large apartments in addition to the one that his family lived in growing up, all on top of the storefronts that he owned. At one point there were 22 people living in the apt. that Raza and Mama now occupy alone.
My personal pad is above the drop in center (medical and orphan, they are adjacent) and is quite huge. There are 4 large rooms all bigger than my current room on
So that, in long, is what I have been doing on a daily basis here in Bukoba. There is alot of 'hurry up and wait' that goes on and makes the days frustrating because I am so goal oriented and I am only able to achieve half of my daily objectives in each 24-hour period, but I have been very active with no leisure time thus far. Although I don't mind working 7 days a week for a short while it will be a hard pace to maintain so I intend on making up for it at the end of my trip. With Raza's blessing and guidance I have begun planning for a safari (the Swahili word for "journey") where I plan on seeing much more of beautiful
