Thrills and Trials

To help balance the many difficulties of living in a developing country with its different culture, language and life style, come moments of sheer beauty and delight; one such was our day at Ruaha National Park last Saturday. 10 of us rose early to catch the plane from the Mvumi (international) airstrip at 7 and again attracted a crowd of cheering children giving us a royal send off. The flight of 45 minutes was comfortable and uneventful, the pilot circled the landing strip at Ruaha to frighten off any wandering animals, and landed as smoothly as a commercial jet at Heathrow’s terminal 5.

The scenery was stunning with hills in the background and the large Ruaha river in the foreground,. Not for nothing is it known as Tanzania’s secret gem; the area is one of the least visited national parks in the country, and definitely one of the most beautiful. The silence was punctuated only by the sounds of the insects and we felt as if we were the only people there.

We clambered into high open sided jeeps and went off on our safari, within minutes we spotted a pride of lions, 4 or 5 females with a splendid lounging male and continued on to see elephants, giraffes, many different species of birds, zebra, hippo, crocodiles and the rare Kudu deer. We lunched in a lodge beside the river and finished the day seeing another smaller pride of lions with 2 lion cubs, and a recent kill at their side. We returned to Mvumi hot, tired and very happy after a wonderful day which will remain in our memories for a long time.

Although we were concerned that John, the schools headmaster, said he had been bitten by a snake whilst watching a football match, when he said it was about 3 inches long we decided he must have been bitten by a worm!

On the walk back from the airstrip we popped into Frank’s house to discuss gathering the catechists together to plan the dissemination of the hunger fund money. Frank is our church secretary and his command of English is sufficient to enable him to act as an interpreter for us. We found his wife sitting intricately weaving grasses together to form wide strips which will be made into mats. His sister in law was also in the house and on being introduced to us she spontaneously presented Irene with the beaded necklace she was wearing as a gift; such is the generosity of people here.

One of the tasks we want to carry out is to assist some of those who are suffering from the poor harvests. This has resulted in the price of maize tripling in the last year. We met with 12 ‘catechists’ (lay workers in the local churches) on Tuesday evening, and explained that we would have enough money from churches and individuals in England to provide food for the most needy in each church, (81 families or individuals in total) for 6 months. Although this is not enough to get to the next major harvest next February / March it should help. Each can be given about £5 a month (about 2 days pay at the minimum wage), enough to buy about 25 kgs of maize. Because of their local knowledge the catechists will identify those in most need in their churches.

At work, Malcolm had to face a meeting of about 20 staff complaining (understandably) that they had not yet been paid for April. Fortunately he had managed to find some money and all staff were paid by the end of the week. Roll on May’s salaries. His work computer also had a disc failure – fortunately he had backed up most of his files so lost some time, but not a lot of data. He also had to appear at magistrates court to complete the case he was involved with last year by the 'National Insurance' provider suing the Hospital for non-payment of salary deductions. Unfortunately he discovered too late that as well as the official fine of 100,000 Tsh (£50) the court clerk also charged an unofficial fee of £50 to the hospital cashier for 'conciliation'- a bribe for nothing. A tragedy for a place like Tanzania is that corruption seems to be endemic, which drains the trust of citizens in the institutions that are meant to defend them.

Finally, an update on the hens. This Friday we succumbed to local advice and acquired a cockerel to encourage our hens to lay. Our internet research says that chickens will lay quite happily without a cockerel but people in the village think one is needed to ‘encourage’ them. We will wait and see if he proves his worth, if not there’s always the cooking pot! He is a large delightful looking male, costing £3.50, whom we have named “George” (having recently re-watched “Roots” with a character called Chicken George!). The latest economic update is 11 eggs for an outlay of £31.50 - £2.87 each. Come on George – do your stuff (or get your stuffing)

Our concerns for next week are:
- a weekend in Dodoma and a Scottish Ceilidh
- Malcolm spending a lot more time investigating a financial problem at the Hospital
- Will George earn his keep?

Home Comforts!

A brisk, cold shower!! There’s nothing like it to start the day – or so we have been trying to convince ourselves. The water here is extremely minerally. One of the problems has been in the 6 months the house was empty, the water in the tanks evaporated leaving the minerals to clog the pipes and seize up the ball-cocks. In the first week the Hospital plumber freed up the cold water supply – this week, joy of joys, the hot water was sorted out and Irene was able to have a hot shower for the first time in a month. O.K. it was slightly brown but I’m sure people pay hundreds at health spas to bathe in mineral water. What bliss! Quelle aroma!.

Irene was also highly excited because Dr. Corrie’s sisters brought some earl grey tea with them from Holland, for her. Small pleasures mean a lot here.

It’s great knowing that the food we eat is incredibly fresh. People bring us produce picked that morning from their gardens and when Momma Asante bought some beef for us last week she had to wait around for the cow to be killed first. However it’s not as easy to obtain as popping out to the supermarket. For example Irene felt great pride in opening our fridge door and knowing for certain that the oldest egg there was 5 days old. However collecting eggs is not a simple process. The chicken run does not have a proper door so to enter you have to unwind lots of rusty netting and climb through a small, roughly cut out hole, with sharp wire edges. You then half crawl to their little mud house and carefully peer inside before gingerly putting in a hand as you never know what might be lurking around! If we don’t remove any eggs daily there’s a chance the other hens might eat the egg and get a taste for them! Oh the joys of rural living! And we always thought eggs come nicely packaged from a supermarket. We have now had 6 eggs from the hens – so the average cost has now plummeted to …….£4.33 each. Almost a bargain. And for those of you that remember last weeks blog, the name of the fifth hen is Drucilla.

One of the luxuries that a few old hands here have is – a common or garden polystyrene egg box from, say, Tescos. When you buy eggs from a shop they are simply placed in a plastic bag. The chances of getting them home with none broken are almost impossible. If anyone visits us, please bring us a present of an egg box – don’t bother with the eggs, just the box!!!

We seem to be collecting a wide range of handicrafts. We have many people calling on us – we made a policy of never giving money to beggars which means we don’t seem to get many any more. However, we do buy food and handicrafts from traders. A family of local wood carvers are frequent visitors and we are collecting a small army of wooden figures. Another regular is ‘the gourd man’ who last year sold us cheap and cheerful engraved gourd shells for about 10p each. This year he seems to have branched out as he has realised we might buy other objects. So far we have bought a number of oil paintings – some new and some second hand. The price is about £3 each. We have also bought an old, wooden Chigogo stool, which he suggested might have belonged to the Tribes’ Chief Mazengo – or was it the Queen of England, which is probably just as likely.

Malcolm is making progress with the Finances at the Hospital, and there may now be a way of paying April salaries – which will be quite an achievement. As you might expect, staff are getting desperate as a large proportion of their income is spent on basics such as food, which is in short supply. Unfortunately the expected management meeting did not take place as half the committee needed to attend a conference in Dodoma for the week, so he is yet to discuss the financial problems facing the Hospital with the whole Management Team. He has also been investigating a couple of financial irregularities – a time consuming but necessary process which is a distraction from resolving the core financial challenges.

Because of the food shortage a number of people in England and our home church have donated money to assist those who are in the greatest need to buy food. Next week we shall meet leaders from 10 of the Local churches to plan the distribution each month (at the moment for 6 months) of about £5 to 75 individuals or families. It does not sound a lot but should be enough for each to buy about 25 kgs of maize and to reduce the impact of starvation.

So, our concerns and plans for next week are:

- payment of April salaries
- the meeting with church leaders to plan the distribution of the Hunger Fund
- a safari to Ruaha National Park on Saturday
- more hot showers

Mary is dead- Long live Mary!!! And other animal tales

Following our acquisition of the two chickens last week, concern was shown by our house worker that they were too cold (yes, too cold!!!!) during the night time and that we needed a couple more so they could keep warm together. She went off and brought us another three, but unfortunately, in the meantime, one of our original two, Mary, disappeared. Was her real name Houdini!! We later discovered a small opening near the top of their fenced run and the conclusion is that a wild cat (all cats are wild here) had got in and taken Mary, the smaller of the two hens. Later still we were offered another chicken for a good price so now we have five strutting round in the run, and today we had our first egg! As it was from the black hen, and she has been the fastest in laying, she has been given the name Jet. Another hen has been named Mary, and a third one ‘Hop-a-long' because she has a bad leg. Our house-workers find it very amusing that we give animals names.

As an economic exercise this is a bit of a disaster:
Cost of 6 hens £14
Cost of food and transport £12
Cost of staff to make run etc ?
£26

Value of 1 egg 5p

Loss to date, more than £25.95

Malcolm has resigned himself to the fact that it provides income to villagers, and at the end of the day, the hens will pay!!!!!!!!!

We also had the opportunity to acquire another “pet” during the week. Two young boys came offering us “kobe” which we mistakenly thought was meat; the words in Swahili sounding very similar. However they returned a few minutes latter with a sack and pulled out a large, football sized, tortoise! No doubt we could have bought it very cheaply but somehow we didn’t think Customs at Heathrow would be too pleased with it on our return. A pity really as our elder daughter has always wanted one.

However, we have also been re-adopted by the friendly, but ‘wild’, hospital dog, Stumpy who has decided it is far more comfortable to sleep in our verandah in the evening even though normally he prefers to live outdoors. We think this may be because in the verandah he doesn’t risk children throwing stones at him. On occasions he meets Malcolm on the way to work, and demands a stroke and leaps around like a puppy. He certainly knows how to get round people!!!!

As promised in last weeks blog Malcolm and Irene took Squashy for a walk last Saturday. We had an enjoyable time even though, once again, many villagers seem terrified of such a ferocious looking German Shepherd dog – or was it Malcolm’s attempts at Swahili??

The finances at the Hospital continue to be challenging. Last week the Electricity company arrived to disconnect the Hospital’s water pump due to the non-payment of the bill. Fortunately the Hospital manager persuaded the engineer it was not a good idea to disconnect a hospital, and promised to arrange for something to be paid. The problem is that although the Hospital now receives grant from Government which includes electricity:
- because Government does not yet pay all staff, despite requiring the Hospital to reduce patient charges, and
- the Training schools ‘freeload’ by refusing to pay their contributions for electricity and water

the electricity grant is being used in part to pay salaries. Even so it is unlikely that the Hospital will find enough money to pay all April salaries

Irene is still considering how best to use her time here (apart from the usual wifely duties, of course!!!!) This week she visited the secondary school to sit in and help at a couple of English lessons. Because the school has recently opened a unit for blind children the lessons included both sighed and blind pupils. Assistance is required to make notes for the blind students so they can then be translated into Braille.

For next week, our concerns are:
- Malcolm has a meeting with Hospital and School managers where he will need to raise the Hospital’s financial problems, and to address the need for the Training schools to pay their fair costs
- He will also has difficult meetings about some sensitive transactions
- The continuing financial problems of the Hospital caused in part be the delay in Government meeting the running costs
- How Irene can best use her time here (including the usual wifely duties)

Miracles in Mvumi

During the week we woke up to real rain! The ground was wet and we could actually see the drops falling! A common place event in Britain but one which is considered close to a minor miracle here. In the 6 months we we here last year we saw no rain in Mvumi.Unfortunately it is too little and too late to help the crops.

Irene has again had a “domestic week”, making bread, lengthening mosquito nets and settling in the 2 new hens we have acquired. (Mary and Jane). These are hopefully going to produce eggs over the next few months and eventually dinner! She did pluck up courage and visit the filing room. Last year she spent most of the time working there to trying to get the 1000’s of files into order She was expecting the worst, that the filing clerks had not been able to keep the system going. She was therefore delighted to find everything in order and the place neat and tidy – miracles do happen!!!! She is delighted at the work the filing clerks have done.

Friday has started to become a bit of a “film night” hosted by John Clark, headmaster of the secondary school. Last week 10 of us sat round his table and enjoyed a meal before gathering in front of his T.V to watch “The Reader” on DVD. The large number was made up of VSO visitors and gap year students. This week we watched Slumdog Millionaire. The only thing missing was the popcorn!

We had a marathon church service last Sunday, 4 hours! This was because a couple were visiting from Cornwall and their church has linked up with St Andrews here, so there were lots of choirs and a complicated fundraising activity of selling spoons. The idea was that the local church members would buy spoons here, write their names on them and then the couple from Cornwall would take them back to the UK, sell them at their church and bring the profits back to the church here. Of course the couple were expecting traditional wooden spoons which would look good hung in U.K. homes, but the locals here wanted to buy the best for their U.K. partners so they got metal ones, which to our eyes looked like “tescos value standard”, but to them are highly regarded as a sign of affluence and modern living! The couple were amazed that they had 475 spoons to take back as they cost the locals 300 shillings each, (15p or equivalent to over half an hour’s work at the minimum wage) a lot of money to the majority of church members. It reminded us of how sacrificial their giving is here. UK churches could learn a lot from them. We were then all invited for food and eventually got home very hot and exhausted at about 5.30.

Malcolm has just finished reading a very interesting book about the early history of Mvumi and the first Missionaries from the late 19th century up to 1938. They were tough in those days, walking the 600km from the coast with little support. Replies to letters took months to arrive from England and there was minimal medical help. The first hospital proper was built in 1935 and Malcolm thinks these are now the Private wards which are being refurbished.

The book was written by a former Mission Partner, Elizabeth McKelvey, who was working here in the 1990's and is still fondly remebered by some of the villagers. She researched the book by talking to locals who remember that far back and by searching the CMS archives. I think she has copies for sale if anyone is interested. mckelvey@pobox.com

We expect to have a quiet weekend. Malcolm hopes to go for a walk with Squashy (an Alsatian) and Stumpy (a wild hospital dog).

No plans for next week yet, except the major challenge of working out how to pay April salaries – we need another miracle!!!

A week of sadness

It has been a week of sadness.

On Monday our house worker, Mama Asante, told us that her young niece had died from Malaria with the funeral on Tuesday. Last year her brother was killed in a road accident in Dar es Salaam.

On Thursday, Dr Corrie took us on a walk to a lake on Marsh land on the outskirts of Mvumi. Unfortunately on the way back she had a phone call to say a close Dutch VSO friend, Saskia, had been seriously hurt when a lorry knocked her off her bike in Dodoma. Although Corrie tried to get to Dodoma as quickly as possible, a distance of only 25 miles, it took over an hour to arrange a lift and Saskia had died by the time she had arrived.

Such is the fragility of life whoever we are and wherever we live.

And from what we can understand there is a growing problem of hunger for some people in the area.

Perversely, although the rains have been poor, last Sunday we did feel our first drops of rain ever in Mvumi on the walk back from church. It was very fine and didn’t even make the ground look damp. Last year there was no lake near the village, so it is ironic that one had formed, even if for only a short time. Already the farmers are sowing crops on the margins of the lake as the waters recede. However, on our walk we passed many examples of Maize and Millet which appeared stunted or dead (see photo above). The test will be in a few months time when the villagers hope to harvest the crops. We understand that the rains have been patchy - although some fields in the area seem alright, others have been badly affected.

Last Friday we visited Dodoma for a piano recital by Simon an English teacher who had visited Mvumi Secondary school for 3 weeks. Although on a simple upright piano, the outdoor concert was atmospheric in the sunny evening surrounded by blossoming trees Even Malcolm, not known to relish this type of culture, enjoyed the event

On Sunday we were welcomed back by St Andrews church. Having brushed up on our limited Swahili, when it came to introduce ourselves to the congregation we managed to say who we are, where we are from and to bring them greetings from Emmanuel Church, Chesham and the Waltons. Malcolm was then asked to come to the front of the church to tell them about our journeys over the previous 6 months – fortunately a visiting chaplain was able to translate

In the past week the Hospital was told that the ambulance has to be taken back to the same dealership in Dar for its initial 1000km service, again requiring staff to stay away for 2 or more days. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the only journeys the Ambulance will have been is to be delivered to Mvumi, and taken back to Dar. Presumably similar journeys will be carried out by other hospitals, before a single patient has been picked up by any ambulance! Such is Africa.

Last week I noticed the Hospital Chaplain, Meshak, walking across the Hospital with a blue bowl – I asked him why as it was a strange time of day to shave!!!! He told me he was just returning from the hostel where pregnant women stay. Many walk to the Hospital from miles around, and because of poor pre-natal care they are not really sure when their baby is due. If they are too early they stay in a hospital hostel until they go into labour rather than having to make the long journey home. Apparently the chaplain had just baptised three of the woman. Some of the villagers still follow the traditional ways of black magic and witch-craft, so it is good to know that the Hospital is still able to carry out its original purpose of teaching about Christianity.

As we look forward to the coming week we ask you to pray for the family and friends of Saskia and Mama Asante.