Yes, today we were in church and a man walked in with a T-shirt
on that said, “Vote for Sherrod Brown” in red, white and blue. So, see, we are
really not that far from home.
Today is Sunday, kind of a typical do-nothing day that
turned out rather well. Church was very hot as usual. Something about that
church just makes it hot. All those bodies coming to pray. No such thing as
personal space in buses in Tanzania,
or churches for that matter. By the end of the service, so many people have
packed in, you can’t sit back in the pew anymore unless you consistently
maintain the elbows out posture.
I finished reading Obama’s first book and did thoroughly
enjoy, with some sympathetic sadness, his experience of meeting his family in Kenya. It was
written in 1995, only 13 short years ago. And how little things have probably
changed since then for his family in Kenya. The family squabbles over
money that really doesn’t exist, the bitterness between family members, the
striving of some and languishing of others, a few AIDS deaths. It is Africa.
The grandmas group are mostly sick. 5 of the 9 of them have
fevers, so Mike’s business lesson for them was cancelled yesterday. They’ve all
been sick for weeks now. Ajentina has had a fever for 3 weeks. Amina’s ankle
always hurts. Jeni is traveling to visit the relatives of the man who just left
her to tell them their son is not financially supporting her or his son. I
wonder if they care or even have anything to offer if they do care? We go back
to Dar next week for Mid-Service Conference and I will go to the duty-free shop
retailer to see if he thought their products were sellable in the duty free
stores at the airport. He already told me their products were not perfect, like
anything hand made is? He gave me some flack about being able to get giraffes
from France
for $1.50 apiece and selling them for $3. But how is that going to help
Tanzanians? Do tourists really want to buy perfect giraffes from France at the airport in Dar es Salaam when grandmas are sewing to
earn money for school tuition for orphans? I guess I’ll find out.
Mid-Service is really a mid-way health check-up. We go to
the dentist. They check our blood and feces. I’d rather skip the dentist as I
hear he doesn’t touch teeth anyway. Seems like it would be just as good to send
samples in ourselves of the other body fluids or products needed. I guess they
want to lay eyes on each of us.
Today, Mike’s sister and her two children in NY skyped us
and we got to talk to the boys about their extracurricular activities. Lee was
more conversational than usual, which I liked. Kathy didn’t have much to say
about politics now, other than she was tired of it.
Sheila went to hear Obama at the Democratic National
Convention in Denver.
We are sure she found this to be a wonderful experience as she has been working
for Obama for over a year now. It is fun to see her so starry eyed over a
candidate; I hope he lives up to her expectations of him.
When she was here for a month she told us about a group in Denver that sends medical
equipment and supplies to developing countries. I checked out their website and
the average shipping container contains about $400,000. worth of wholesale
equipment and supplies. While Sheila was here, we spent a day driving to
Madibira, about an hour north of here—the area of Tanzania
that was just annexed into Ruaha National Park to make it the second largest park in Africa. The Sukuma tribe, similar to the Masai, were paid
money for their land; some have stayed in a settlement up there, but many have
left for other parts of this region and perhaps Tanzania. The point is that Sheila
has pictures of all these empty dispensaries that the district has been able to
get the money to build, but not furnish or equip. It will hopefully be very
handy for her to drive about 20-25 minutes down I-25 in Denver to talk in
person with this group who sends shipping containers to developing countries. I
hope this works out. I told the District Medical Officer he needed to appoint
someone to work with us on this project as if we do it, none of his staff will
be able to continue pulling in international monies after we go. So, the
process is looming ahead of taking the head health man (not health facilities
like the District Medical Officer) for the district through the process of
applying for a huge amount of international money. He has few computer skills,
so we will start by opening up an email account for him and go from there.
Mike will fix the hospital’s photocopier tomorrow. There is
a plan among the district’s computer people to let some computers become
non-functional so that the employees who use the computers scream about it.
Maybe then the District Executive Officer will see the computer project that
seemed to be so promising when we first arrived as more important.
I just finished a project for Peace Corps. I kind of fell
into this during the weeks we were helping PC Tanzania train the new
volunteers. Given they are recruiting older volunteers, the language classes
need to be redesigned for older language learners. Older language learners
learn differently than younger ones do, primarily due to expected cerebral
changes as you age. Since PC’s focus has until recently been younger
volunteers, the teaching modalities used are particularly poorly designed for
older learners. With my foreign language teaching background, psychological
knowledge of adult learning theory and having been through PC language classes
and still learning Kiswahili, I was in a unique position to contribute. It was
very interesting really and I will be interested to see what PC does with my work.
I feel sure it will be forwarded to the African Regional HQ and onto Washington, D.C.
PC is well aware they need to adjust to accommodate older learners. But it is
such a huge organization, and governmental at that. I’m not expecting anything
too quickly.
Today and the next 2 days are immunization days for any
child under 5 in this district. All health facilities are open and all vaccines
(a whole host of vaccines like polio, MMR, etc.) are free. There are certainly
enough diseases to vaccinate against here. Too bad there is no malaria vaccine.
Getting people to come into the facilities from the far reaches of the district
is difficult due to impassable roads, no transportation, etc. I will be
interested to hear what the counts are in contrast to the estimated population
of children under the age of 5.
Another news worthy item is that on Friday, Mike and I went
to Madibira to visit the new PC volunteer that was just placed there a week
ago. We arranged for her to get a gas tank so she could use the stove in her
house. Mike needed to fix the stove anyway. She has no electricity, but does
have a refrigerator. The house has been vacant for a year, so we advised that
she use the refrigerator for her food storage to diminish the likelihood of
attracting any undesirable creatures. She seems mature for her age and we like
her. She was getting a lot of how the last volunteer was perfect, spoke
beautiful Kiswahili and the tribal language of Kihehe, did all these projects,
etc. So, we had to tell her that when we visited with the DMO the village
government officials only complained about the last volunteer being gone too
much, etc. We have had communication with the last volunteer there and she said
the village government (now different people) were not cooperative so she went
off on her own to find people in the community to work with. Hearing all this
seemed to have a good impact on the new volunteer. It is interesting how when
someone leaves, they are elevated as if they were perfect, isn’t it? Makes us
wonder what will be said about Mike and I once we leave. We are glad the new
vol heard that there was more to it than what she was hearing.
So, that is about the news from Rujewa. Nothing exciting but
all is OK. Hope all is OK with whoever reads this.
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