Tanzania Mission, weekend off

Despite the weekend off, we still got up at chicken-thirty. The rooster that crows outside our door will become Lucas’ birthday dinner on Monday. I’m looking forward to sleeping past 6:00 AM on Tuesday.

Today we wandered back over to the Italian-run orphanage and chatted with folks for a while. So strange to banter back and forth with Europeans in Swahili. Then we played football with the little kids who all know our names by now and linger on the road and call our names while we’re napping (they know we have a real soccer ball).

The kids know us now and shout our names from the road when they want to play.

The rest of the crew went to Ruaha National Park while Karissa and me stayed behind. We wanted to go check out the churches tomorrow so we’re going to the Katoliki Mass at 8:00 AM and then the Lutheran service on the other side of the village at 10:30 AM. When in Rome…wait, didn’t the Roman’s throw Christians to the lions? I get very confused. Though I’m especially excited for the Lutheran service. I’ve been hearing their choir practice all week and they’re ridiculously amazing.

A previous visitor with Global Volunteers spent a few weeks here and then went home to Boston and raised funds to bring the Pomerini Choir to the US for two months (40 concerts). The concert proceeds paid for the piping to bring water to the village. Before 2008, women and children would walk 5 km each way to fetch water, going back and forth several times throughout the day as needed for cooking, washing, bathing, etc.

Tomorrow get to hear the choir for free. And enjoy water anytime.

Tanzania Mission, Day 6: Praying to the gods of cell coverage

These posts are coming courtesy of a sliver of cell service that magically appears each evening. But...tonight's it's been slower than usual (busy Friday, perhaps). So this will be brief, but at least I'll get a few photos up.

The highglights of the day were getting lost on the Italian side of Pommern. Yes, there's an Italian side where everyone speaks Hehe, Swahili, and a bit of Italian, so we know we're lost when the children shout "ciao" as we walk by. I also got to play medical practice dummy for Leesha who tested my blood for Malaria, which was negative. I'm also not pregnant, which is a relief.

Meeting with Edward at the Mission House, which has solar lights and a generator in the evening.

BUSTED! Eating protein bars when they didn't want to eat fish.

Madi has made a ton of new friends here in Pommern

Tanzania Mission, Day zzz...

It's been a week and we’re all so tired. Happy, but tired.

I worked in the CDC clinic today with Leesha, Madi, Haley, and Kassie. We pulled client records, refilled them, logged records, and measured, counted, and dispensed meds which we tucked into folded pieces of notebook paper in lieu of pill bottles. Lots of patients (100+) and then shelved and recorded all the meds we brought.

We also went with Edward to pay a visit to the widow of the young woman who died this week. It’s customary for everyone in the village to visit over many days, bringing small gifts of money, food, or firewood.

As far as work, everyone has his or her class assignments, plus Taylor is teaching music, Leesha is teaching the local med staff on the new med equipment we brought, and Madi was invited and visited the homes of four of the little girls she’s been playing with, which is a bit of an honor.

To end the day we met Edward at a “pub”…a cozy place in the heart of the village that serves beer, soda, and home brew, which we’ve been told to avoid. There are actually two pubs: the Quiet Pub for the old folks and the Noisy Pub for everyone else. A few of the kids tried light beer (called women’s beer) and watched DVDs of Muslim “coastal dance music” and Rhianna. On the way back Justin Bieber was playing on a battery-operated radio here in the heart of bush Tanzania proving that THERE IS NO ESCAPE!

Tanzania Mission, Day 4: Tears in the morning

Woke up early and saw an elderly woman passing by with a cane, she seemed to be crying. I shortly found out that there had been a death in the village the previous night and word had spread and that everything would be a bit subdued today as everyone prepared for the burial.

That set the tone for a sobering day.

We spend most of the morning with Dr. Elton, the resident clinician who is a dentist by training but does everything from pulling teeth to delivering babies to treating malaria, managing AIDS cases, and overseeing various forms or birth control and family planning. The morning was overwhelming—just to see it. The medicine on-hand was probably less than you have in your bathroom medicine cabinet (and this is a clinic that treats 4,000 patients from five villages). Heartbreaking doesn’t begin to describe it. When I think about more developed areas of the world spending money on frivolous medical procedures and I wanted to cry. Karissa did. All morning.

The whole thing was confounded by a gorgeous modern clinic within walking distance that had been built by the Roman Catholic Church but had no doctor and sat empty because of a political situation regarding obtaining a license. And they can't coordinate with the Lutheran clinic which promotes birth control. Ah, religion, you somehow get in the way of God and Man.

But lest you harp on organized (or in this case disorganized) religion, the Lutheran mission here offers free medical service to anyone without regard to faith and without this clinic the mortality rate in the villages would be far worse than it already is.

So if you’re a proud atheist or agnostic who thinks organized religions have caused more harm than good in the world, look around. I don’t see any atheist missions caring for the poor and dying.

The rest of the day was filled with Swahili lessons, visits to the school, meeting with Haran, the headmaster, running into a group of Italian and Polish aid-workers, visiting the Catholic orphanage, meeting with a Spanish monk, and walking back beneath power lines that could provide electricity to the village but the nearest power station is hundreds of miles away. Frustrating to look up and see electricity running from hydroelectric dams and yet no way to access it.

Dinner. Assignments and planning for tomorrow. Leesha will head to the clinic and the rest of us will head to the schools. I’ll be teaching Math. God help us all!