Update from FoCT

FoCT Christmas Preparations – 2013

Just a few snaps from here in Tanzania to let you know what FoCT is doing with the children we support here.

We did a Christmas Party for the kids at Mugeza school for the disabled. The albino kids have to stay at the school during holidays for their own safety.

(Below) The Fransican Sisters distributed some new sweaters to the kids, as well as a cuddly toy for their Christmas present.

Group photo – I entertained them with Fugio the monkey puppet as usual!!

Then it was onto St Nick’s Childrens home. Below is a painting that FoCT had presented to the centre.

St Nick’s kids in party mood!!

Group shot at St Nicholaus Children’s Home after the xmas party...

Next we did a FoCT Christmas delivery to a mum whose four sons have muscular dystrophy. The eldest died this year – and there are three remaining. Below is the youngest opening his Christmas present!

Then their mum gave me a present of some fried grasshoppers wrapped in a banana leaf!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL FROM TANZANIA!!! BEST, FOCT. 

Day before Christmas

It has been over two years since my visit to Tanzania, but I wrote this for Christmas and decided to share it:

Merry Christmas,

T'Was the day before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring 'cept our cats toy mouse. 

No stockings were hung there was no tree with glitter. Our house was a mess and smelled somewhat like litter.

My friends, they did ask me "Greg what is the matter?" Ba-humbug I said to their holiday chatter.

For the first time in my life I've no Christmas cheer, for my family is there and I am stuck here.

And so to work on Christmas Eve, I went feeling quite shitty. All the way in my car I had a party of pity.

As I waited to enter my own Christmas jail, my phone buzzed to say, "hey you've got an email!"

An update from Tanzania brought me back to my past. I read through the letter, I read it twice fast.

As I looked through the photos I couldn't help it I smiled, see there's nothing quite like joy on the face of a child. 

The letter told tales of the Christmas gifts they were giving, and of the school where these kids were living.

The kids at the school, for one reason or more, were unable to go to school long before. 

These kids were disabled unable to learn, no school that could take them, no matter their yearn.

This year at the school Albino children will stay, for outside of its walls it is not safe to play. 

How sad that for no reason except for skin tone, it's unsafe for these children to be on their own.

And so from this email showing all Christmas fun. I'm reminded how much work there is still to be done.

And the next time I'm feeling so down and so low I'll remind myself that I'm not always the star of the show.

Love, 

Greg

My Weekend and My Introduction to Opinions on Teen Pregnancy in Kayanga

Weekend

6/11-6/12

I don't have too much to say about my weekend because I spent most of it catching up on the essays and journaling, which needed to be completed. On Saturday we cooked a meal for the staff at the ELCT Hostel where we have been living. we made two types of pasta, garlic bread, mashed potatoes, and guacamole. This involved going to the market buying ingredients and cooking. For one of my braver classmates it also meant learning to slaughter and prepare a chicken. On Sunday we moved from the ELCT to the Misha Guest House. This move meant that we were much closer to the Kayanga Secondary School where I had been teaching, but much farther from the Womeda headquarters where I will be volunteering this week so its a good thing I brought good walking shoes.

Womeda

6/13-6/14

My group really only spent two days working with womeda. We were to gather information about the communities perception of teen and early pregnancy. The other group had met with students and community leaders and learned that much of the community desires there to be more education in the schools regarding birth control and the negative effects of teen pregnancy. On Monday we met with government officials from the local ward who stuck mostly to the legal regulations which say that 18 is the youngest age for marriage however they did acknowledge the reality of early pregnancy after Dr. Hartman mentioned that it is also something we encounter in the United States. They also discussed that many of the relationships in Kayanga are not formal marriages. It is not uncommon for people to live together for decades as a family without ever becoming officially married. Polygamy is also sometimes considered acceptable in Tanzania. On Tuesday we met with district officials who travel to some of the schools to teach about the issue of early pregnancy. These officials seemed to me to support an abstinence only education and use fear of the consequences as a prevention method. One quote that really jumped out at me was when one official said he would tell students about postpartum depression and say that, "If a young girl gets pregnant she is more likely to commit suicide." This particular group seemed to feel that education about birth control would make students feel their are no consequences to sex, and that this education would make students more curious. One thing that all of the people we interviewed had in common was that the blame early pregnancy on curiosity and young peoples inability to control their urges and desires.

Disabled in Africa

My trip to the clinic for people with disabilities

June 8

As most of you know, due to a stroke I suffered before birth, I have grown up with limited use of the left side of my body. In spite of this disability I have always taken for granted my "right" to a normal life, and my parents and community have always provided me with the resources to make this a reality. I never truly realized how lucky that makes me. On Wednesday Dr. Hartman, one of the professors leading my course, approached me and asked if I would be interested in joining a small group of students who would be attending a clinic for disabled people on Thursday. I was apprehensive for two reasons. First, I did not want to miss a day teaching ESL because my time there was limited, and secondly because my own strategy for dealing with my disability has often been to ignore it and only confront it when there was no other option. I usually felt very uncomfortable about drawing attention to my disability. My classmates encouraged me to go and Dr. Hartman explained that people with disabilities in this region are viewed as a burden on the family and often do not have access to education or employment. He felt, therefore, that it may be good for them to see a disabled American who attends university and holds a regular job. The clinic was being organized by the local Anglican dioceses who partners with many NGO's and other churches in the area to connect people with disabilities to the resources that would most help them. The clinic was a referral clinic where the Anglican community development organizers would evaluate each person and recommend to them whichever church program or hospital could best help them.

Our group was being led by Matthew, a Field Representative for a British NGO called Friends of the Children of Tanzania (FoCT), who partners with many local NGO's focused on promoting the rights of those with disabilities. Matthew works for the UN World Food Program and is on a two year sabbatical to work with FoCT. During our rough one hour land cruiser ride to the clinic Matthew mentioned that being born into the American middle class places you around the top 5% of global wealth and during your life you will likely remain between the top 10% and the top 1% of global wealth. In contrast being born in east Africa likely puts you in the bottom 10% of global wealth and if you are disabled you likely drop to below the bottom 5%. When we arrived at the clinic we discovered it was being held behind a church in a dirt walled building with a straw floor. There were about 30 people gathered when we arrived and the first order of business was a meeting, led by one of the female organizers who was a very powerful speaker, to discuss and educate the community on the causes and types of disabilities. At one point she even stopped to chide the local women for not speaking out enough during the question and answer portion. There was some confusion about the difference between a sickness and a disability. When the clinic began, Matthew explained that the cost of a trip to the hospital was very expensive because you have to factor in transportation cost plus cost of stay and they must bring their own caretaker and food because the hospital does not provide food. In addition they also lose their wages and their caretakers wages during the stay. FoCT is one of the organizations which matches family funds to help with the cost of the trip.

I could honestly go on for pages with heartbreaking stories about the things we witnessed during the clinic but instead I will focus on two of the stories to give you a general idea of what we saw. The first story I will tell is about a fourteen-year old girl named Loveness. Loveness was born with legs which were bent and bowed her family saved much money and she was able to travel and receive a surgery which placed metal plates in her legs to straighten them. After the correction she was supposed to return to have the plates removed, but shortly after her surgery her father died and her mother became ill. Because of the lack of income her mother was not able to save the 50,000 TSH (around $38 USD) she requires for the trip, and Loveness has begun regressing and may need yet another corrective surgery. She has also been unable to start school because she cannot make the long walk and she has reached an age too old to start regular primary school without first attending a special school to tutor students before they can reenter the school system. As each of us American students prepared to offer to provide the cost we were told that if the organization did not require the families to contribute they would be flooded with requests and their resources would be spread too thin. They give each family an economic evaluation and determine what percentage the family is able to contribute.

Later in the day the land cruiser went with a man who had arrived to tell us about a child too disabled to make the journey on foot. They returned with a child who appeared to be around one or two years old and was dressed in a baby's one piece outfit. This child turned out to be a seven year old boy who was born with brain damage and had not developed enough muscle. To give you an idea of his size, they propped him up in a chair made from a five gallon bucket cut in half vertically and tied with handkerchiefs for support and his head barely reached the top of the bucket. Through an older woman in the community we learned that the boys father was a drunk who regularly beats the boys 14 year old brother, and the mother ran away after the boys birth. This means that responsibility for the young boys care has fallen to his brother who is malnourished and has been forced to drop out of school to stay home. The Anglican clinic gave a referral to take the boy to a Catholic run center where nuns would take care of him full time and also recommended that the Lutheran church follow up with house visits to check on the 14 year old and hopefully prevent him from becoming another run away street child. I was very impressed with the level of inter-faith cooperation. I would like to become more involved with raising awareness and promoting the rights of disabled people in this region, as well as helping them develop access to health care and education. In the interest of raising awareness, I encourage you all to forward this post on and to check out www.foct.org.uk or help one of the other NGO's promoting the rights of disabled people.

Update: I was told by one of the Anglican organizers that the Anglican Dioceses disabilities program is financially backed by the Anglican Dioceses of Sydney. However the Sydney Dioceses is considering reducing the funding because the want them to be self sustaining, which at this point may not be realistic without outside funding. Also, If anyone is interested in giving to Matthews organization the current method is through http://www.justgiving.com/foct/donate

Welcome to Kayanga

Blue people, intro to service projects, and market day.

Thursday June 2- Saturday June 4

On Thursday we walked around Kayanga for the first time, we were running errands like going to the bank and getting cell phones. It was an weird feeling, we are only the fifth group of Amizade volunteers in the community so it was very unusual for the locals to see white people. the word in Kiswahili used to refer to Europeans and americans is Mzungo and we hear it quite often. it literally means "one who goes in circles." As we walked through town in a group of 18 everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at us. My mind kept going back to something said on the bus ride to tanzania " imagine a group of blue people walked down the street in your neighborhood." I guess that may be a bit of an exaggeration. On Friday we went to MAVUNO to pick up the Amizade coordinators who are living there. MAVUNO is one of the NGO's we will be working with during our stay. It is a co-op of local farmers, founded in 1993, which sponsors many community development projects including building an all girls boarding school which is where we will be building a 70,000 liter water tank for a water capture system. While we were at the MAVUNO headquarters they showed us many of the projects being practiced there including: raising chickens, water capture systems, and a bio-digester which was installed by Engineers Without Borders. This was installed to harness natural methane from plant decomposition to make gas for cooking. I found it interesting to hear that the local cook would not use the gas stove because it cooks unevenly and burns rice. this makes me wonder about the effectiveness of our western strategies to combat climate change if we consider only environmental sustainability instead of also questioning if something is socially and culturally sustainable. We also met with a local leader from Womeda the women's rights organization we will be working with. He gave us a brief overview of the history of the organization which offers legal counciling to women and educates the community on the legal rights of women, which exist but remain unknown to many in the community. To help this organization we will conduct interviews with people within the community about the issue of teen and early pregnancy. we will organize this information so that it can be applied to a grant proposal. Saturday was market day so we went and practiced our greetings in KiSwahili. After market we had our first class which largely focused on getting to know our classmates.

Teaching English

Monday June 6- Tuesday June 7, Thursday June 9- Friday June 10

Monday was our first day teaching English. We had a good time introducing ourselves to the students. We began by assessing their English level, which at first seemed nonexistent but once we got past the awkward shyness we realized they have a basic knowledge of vocabulary. One big struggle is trying to determine how much is memorization and how much is actual comprehension. Our main focus has been analyzing poetry and expressing oneself. I would say we are teaching ESL except for all of these kids it is a third language at least. The local tribal dialect is taught at home, then primary school is taught in Kiswahili, and finally Secondary school is taught entirely in English. In other words the system is not ideal, but I'm not here to challenge government policies (at least not this time). I'm working in form 4 which is like seniors in high school. the teaching strategy in Tanzania is lecture only so our interactive group teaching technique is being received very well by the students and teachers, but getting seniors to participate in any country is still like pulling teeth. Another issue we face here is a lack of resources we were told that all the students had read a poem but when we started to discuss it we found there were only a handful of books even available at the school. The teachers teach from a government provided syllabus with very specific instructions and at the end of the year the students are tested in a government assessment required to pass the year. I will probably talk more about the strategy and politics of teaching English in Africa in a later post.

First days

Travel time and my senses as we arrive in Kampala, Uganda
Written on June 1

We made it! travel was rough I woke up at 4 a.m. on monday and did not get real sleep until about 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Let me begin by saying that I got sick to my stomach during my last night in Phoenix and have not lost the feeling of nausea since. I'm not saying this because I want sympathy, I'm saying this because it makes my food review that much more impressive. The trip from Phoenix went relatively smoothly, but was about as stressful as you would expect from a two day journey to the other side of the globe. I slept a little on each flight and about 4 hours on the flight from brussels to uganda. When we arrived in Uganda all any of us wanted was a shower and sleep. Once we cleared customs we were met by the Amizade on-site coordinators and left Entebbe airport to drive about 40 minutes to our hotel in Kampala. It was about 9:30 at night when our flight landed so during the drive we could not see much past the side of the road ( very few street lights). as we passed through the streets of the city one of my classmates asked me if the buildings we were passing were what I had expected . No, Kampala is much larger than what I had expected to find in Africa. I guess I had expected huts and smaller buildings. According to one of the Amizade coordinators this is one of the largest metropolises in eastern Africa, and the area where we will be volunteering in Tanzania is much more what I was expecting. Kampala is amazing. Our hotel is much nicer than I expected. It is probably the equivalent of a cheap motel in the states as far as room size and amenities go, but the service is exceptional. We had dinner last night around midnight. It was buffet style but the women serving the food insisted on large portions, and I'm prod to say I ate everything including the cabbage. It all tasted great we had: mashed bananas, peas, beef, cabbage, chicken, rice, and two types of beans. the meat was juicy and tender and they put the gravy from the beef onto the bananas. Even though our airline food was not bad, we all ate as if we hadn't eaten in a month. After dinner we were all so tired we went to our rooms to sleep and shower. each section of the building has a switch to turn on the hot water and each room has its own shower. We were not sure of the amount of hot water so the three of us rooming on my hall decided to take turns using our showers. While I was waiting for my turn to shower I stepped out onto the balcony and was met with a breathtaking view, the lights from the city hung in the distance like hundreds of floating sparks. A fog ( which I was later told was smog) hung over the city and reflected the lights perfectly. One thing that really struck me as I looked over the city was how quiet it was the only sounds were crickets and dogs. Even at 2 a.m. no city in the states would be so quiet. Sitting there looking out over the city it was as if I could feel the stress draining out of my body. As I lay in bed last night, surrounded by my mosquito netting, It seemed so odd to me that something so thin and that seemed so insignificant could save so many lives. It brought me back to reality and I felt guilty when I thought of how much we consume and waste in the united states and how little effort it would take on our part to solve this issue. I couldn't shake the thought that while I was laying protected in my hotel room most of the people in the country around me had no protection. I am writing this in my journal on wednesday June 1st at 8 in the morning, I have been up since 7. we will be loading our stuff onto the bus before breakfast and then leaving on a 6 hour bus ride to Tanzania. During the bus ride I plan to study KiSwahili. I cannot wait to see where we will be staying for the next three weeks.

Uganda, The Equator, and Arriving in Tanzania
Written on June 2nd

I'm sure a large portion of this blog will focus on my senses because the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes here are so overwhelmingly different from what I am used to. Yesterday, after breakfast which included the sweetest banana and pineapple I have ever tasted, we got on a bus to travel to the Tanzanian border. nothing had prepared me for the sights of the trip, possibly the most beautiful green countryside I have ever seen. We are at the end of a rainy season so everything is lush and green. While traveling through cities and villages we saw hundreds of unfinished buildings and construction projects. Also along the road were hundreds of tiny shops in small shack like buildings. many appeared to be selling the same types of products. It was strange when we would pass a modern looking building in the middle of all the half finished buildings in the city, but many oil companies and banks had offices along the road. In Uganda we crossed the equator and stopped to take pictures. while at the equator a local gave a demonstration using funnels and a flower to show that in one hemisphere water drains clockwise and in the other it drains counter-clockwise while directly over the equator the water does not spin while draining. The border between Uganda and Tanzania was interesting to experience there was very little security you could walk across with no-one asking you questions. We first had to stop in one building to get an exit stamp in Uganda. There was a long line and many people tried to cut in front of us and we tried to stop them by staying close together. Getting into Tanzania was much easier and didn't take long. The drive from the boarder to Kayanga was beautiful and while on the bus we received an informal lesson in Kiswahili. During the bus ride, I had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Hartman and one of my classmates about the strategies of foreign aid organizations and how our readings compared to what we were seeing on the ground here. Am really excited because I can already tell that many of the assumptions we make as westerners will be challenged. I think that one of the points being made by the course is that while we love "one-size-fits-all" solutions to our problems, this strategy does not apply to the issues facing the developing world. Another point is that if we are going to provide aid, we must try to understand that we may create new problems while trying to solve old ones. We finally arrived in Kayanga and it was amazing. The hostel where we are staying is much nicer than i expected and we have real toilets and a very comfortable bed. Last night after we got settled in and had dinner we spent some time creating a grope contract to make sure we are all on the same page concerning our group behavior. We all seem to get along well and I think we have a great grope of people with similar interests. Right now it is about 7:30 and I have been up since 5:25 when a rooster crowed outside my window. Today we plan on exploring Kayanga and running errands to the bank, internet cafe, and cell phone store. tomorrow we will visit one of our work sites.

note: June 7th
Im having a great time. Sorry the updates are so far behind access to computers are limited and I have to buy internet access 30 minutes at a time. I will post more updated entries ASAP.

Also I blame any spelling and/or grammar mistakes on my rush.

Here is the detailed Itinerary for my trip

Monday, May 30, 2011

In Transit - Newark to Entebbe - Flight departure from US

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Entebbe

- Arrival in Entebbe

- One Student arrives at 12:50pm

- All other flights arrive at 9:45pm

- Overnight in Entebbe

- Relax / Program Orientation

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

In Transit -Entebbe to Karagwe

- Travel by van to Karagwe, Tanzania

- Arrive to ELTC in the evening

Thursday, June 2, 2011

through

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Karagwe, Tanzania - Service and learning in Karagwe

Monday, June 20, 2011

In Transit - Karagwe to Mwanza

- Transfer from Karagwe to Bukoba

- Afternoon in Bukoba

- Transfer by overnight ferry to Mwanza

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

In Transit - Safari

- Arrive in Mwanza

- Begin Safari through Serengeti

- Overnight camping in the middle of the Serengeti

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

In Transit - Safari to Arusha

- All day Safari through the Ngorogoro Crater

- Arrive in Arusha in the evening

- Overnight in Arusha

Thursday, June 23, 2011

In Transit - Arusha to Zanzibar

- Afternoon flight to Zanzibar

- Transfer to hotel

- Overnight 1 at the beach

Friday, June 24, 2011

Zanzibar

- Explore Zanzibar

- Overnight 2 at the beach

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Zanzibar

- Explore Zanzibar

- Overnight 3 at the beach

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Zanzibar

- Explore Zanzibar

- Overnight 4 at the beach

Monday, June 27, 2011

In Transit - Beach to Stonetown

- Visit Spice Plantation

- Transfer to hotel in Stonetown

- Overnight in Stonetown

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

In Transit - Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam

- Morning ferry to Dar es Salaam

- Depart Dar es Salaam for USA- 9:20pm

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

In Transit - Tanzania to USA - Arrive US

I will arrive in DC at 3:14pm