It's party time!!!!!

It’s been a week of celebrations.

On Saturday we were overwhelmed with the amount of effort and organisation put in by members of the Mamajus choir for our “farewell do”. The first youngsters arrived with huge cooking pots and ingredients at about 10.30 in the morning and hung around until Mama Asante arrived to set the whole thing in motion, at about 1. Big fires were lit in the garden and the pots balanced on stones, and cooking commenced. At around 4 every thing was ready. Malcolm, Irene, Julia and her gap student, plus the school chaplain and officials of the choir sat at the “top table” whilst about 35 members of the choir squashed into the lounge to sing and dance. We then all enjoyed the rice, meat and mchicha, a type of spinach, and a reprise was sung. Unbeknown to the choir Julia had brought tubs of ice cream for everyone, the cheer from the younger choir members when they saw this was deafening. Irene particularly enjoyed watching the face of a woman as she tasted ice cream for the first time! At the end there were a few speeches and they presented us with a tape of their music. We hope they enjoyed themselves as much as we did and we wont forget all the trouble they went to on our behalf. A video has been posted on Youtube (search for thecrawfordclan) - a taster is available below.

On Monday it was a public, muslim holiday for Eid and so we were able to attend a confirmation at St. Andrews church which happened to be on the same day. It was only the previous Friday when we were reminded that it might be a holiday depending on when the new moon is first sighted. This takes a bit getting used to when you come from a country where even the traditional Whitsun holiday is moved to the last Monday in May to be convenient, and you assume the moon has been researched for long enough to be able to forecast its cycles in advance.

The Bishop presided at the service. About 40 people, teenagers and older, were confirmed. The Bishop’s wife sat next to us and gave us a detailed translation of his sermon. She said he always used the same sermon at each confirmation during the year, tackling subjects that the local ministers were either afraid to speak on or didn’t understand. This was the 101st confirmation service this year, and therefore it was the 101st time he’d given this particular talk - and the confirmations continue until mid December! She also said that they put on a lot of weight during the confirmation season as all the churches gave them meals. She knew the sermon so well after hearing it 100 times before that several times during translation she apologised she had got ahead of her husband.

Packing has begun and Irene is trying to work out a way of protecting all the wooden carvings Malcolm has been “persuaded” to buy by the local carvers. She has yet to start thinking about the paintings! The final 3 chickens left us on Wednesday, 1 to Mama Asante, 1 to Stepheni, our gardener; and one to Zenna who has been giving us weekly Kiswahili lessons. We know she wants to keep her hen for eggs but suspect the others have already been eaten. Irene is missing them as they were the nearest thing she had to pets! Malcolm is interested in the financial aspects. The final, net cost of producing in total 184 eggs, assuming each surviving chicken is worth £2, is £38 or over 20p each. As Eegs in the local market are no more than 10p each, and the cost of labour isn’t taken into account this was not a sound business venture. But then pets are never a sound business venture unless you own a pet shop!!!,

Malcolm is still trying to get a quart in a pint pot as regards to work He has many things he wants to finish off before leaving and time just seems to be running away from him. This is not unusual for him, and no doubt he will leave thinking he has not done enough – and no doubt the work of the Hospital will continue.

Spot the differences

Irene had a birthday on Friday.

One of the features of Tanzanian fashion is that vibrant, bright (to us garish) colours are preferred. This applies to birthday cards where bright flowers are popular. Irene had several bought in Tanzania, and one sent from England – can you spot the difference?

Mvumi has changed over the years, but in many cases this has been slow and differences small. The first qualified doctor was appointed in 1938; an Australian called Paul White who is best known for writing the series of ‘Jungle Doctor’ books for children popular in the 1960’s. His first book, "Doctor of Tanganyika" published in 1942, describes his experiences in Mvumi, and includes several black and white photographs.

The first church here was St Peters, originally a whitewashed building. It is still standing cleaned to its original stone (but behind a modern building) in front of the former doctor’s house and girls boarding school which are now used for storage by the Secondary school. Still standing too is the Baobob tree – but this is hardly surprising as they live for over 1000 years and are revered by villagers, to the extent that some are used as shrines for pagan beliefs.

For many living conditions are also the same. Most villagers, particularly the poorer ones, live in a traditional houses made of a wooden frame and mud bricks supporting a flat, twig and mud covered roof, Windows are small, which at least helps to keep the houses cool and the mosquitoes out. If they are wealthy they aspire to a house of concrete blocks with a corrugated iron roof.

An end of an era was marked when Corrie left the Hospital. Paul White was the first Doctor here – Corrie is the last western doctor (at least for the time being). For many years the Hospital was managed by medical missionaries who knew that one of their roles was to train and develop Tanzanians to take over the running of the Hospital. This is now complete. However, although there are Tanzanian ‘Doctors’ at the Hospital they would not be recognised as such by western Hospitals as they have only 3 years basic training.

There was also a difference to our cooking arrangements on Irene’s birthday, In the morning we had one of our regular electric power cuts. Irene was desperate for a cup of tea and soup for lunch, and so Mama Asante was delighted to cook over a traditional, Gogo, fire.

Next week we are to have a farewell meal with the Mamajus choir from St Andrews church. We will also need to decide what to do with our 3 remaining hens. Since the last update 2 weeks ago there have been about 28 more eggs, and we had Jet for dinner (two dinners). Her value was about £2 so the net cost for 178 eggs is £44 – 25p each.

PS – although Irene is a year older it’s hard to ‘Spot the difference’ with her!!!

A chnage of culture.

"Look!! I’ve just seen an elephant. Or maybe it was a giraffe! Or a man in grey trousers".

It is difficult for an untrained eye to spot animals in a safari park. For our farewell tour with Corrie we stayed in a luxury tented safari camp inside Mikumi Nature Reserve. Luxury as each of the large tents are within a wooden shelter (tented bandas) , and have beds, electricity, showers and toilets. And there is excellent, western food. This was all part of preparing Corrie for her return to western culture

Although inside the park, and not allowed to walk outside on our own, we were well away from any large animals and had panoramic views over the Mikumi plains. It was absolutely quiet except the occasional sound of an animal or bird.

Although we failed to see any leopards (who are mainly nocturnal animals) we did see the only surviving hartebeest living in Mikumi and a fresh lion kill. Corrie also managed to see 5 birds she had never seen before. Unfortunately she also attracted a number of tse-tse flies and acquired a number of painful stings

After two nights there we moved on to Iringa.

Travelling between towns in Tanzania is fairly convenient as there are many private coach companies. Conductors make money by taking on extra passengers between bus stations, and pocketing the fares. Our experiences included:

- the police check-point which forced 2 passengers without seats to get off the bus, only to be picked up again 200 yards down the road, in sight of the check-point, to the cheers of other passengers
- as we got on a coach, as arranged, outside Mikumi, being offered the alternative of paying £6 each without a ticket or £9 with a ticket. Having said ‘£9 with ticket’ later being told by the conductor we could pick up the ticket next day in Iringa – some chance!!! We didn’t argue as we wanted his help getting off before the bus station. Later found that the correct fare was £6.
- Waiting 2 hours at the side of the road for the 10 am bus to pick us up – which it did at 11.30 am
- 8 hour bus journey back to Dodoma accompanied by very loud Tanzanian soap operas, comedy shows and a Jet Li film

We stayed for 4 nights at a ‘not so luxury’ but excellent camp site outside Iringa (tented bandas and shared toilets but excellent food). This was all part of Corries adjustment back to western culture – BBC World news on TV, cooked breakfasts, cappuccino coffee, cold weather (Iringa is in the southern mountains) and being surrounded by Mzungus. She also added 17 to her new bird sightings.

We visited a couple of tourist attractions. South of Iringa is one of Tanzania’s few historical sites. A few years ago the clearance of a former silted river revealed a horde of stone age artefacts – stone knives, axes, tools etc. Within 100 yards is a second gorge with remarkable sand-stone pillars formed by an old river which washed away the surrounding stone but left pillars where there was a large, impervious boulder at the top. A mini Cheddar Gorge.

Despite the spectacular settings, and the fact that Tanzania has very little alternative built history, we were the only visitors there. A problem in Tanzania is that so often things aren’t done just right. Money had been invested in building a very smart, modern museum and large car park. However the access track from the main trunk road was a narrow, bumpy 400 yard mud track impossible to use without a 4 wheel drive car. Impassable for coaches. The other oddity was that although there are comparably few electricity lines in Tanzania, the decision had been taken to erect large pylons over the site – equivalent to erecting pylons over Stonehenge!!!!

On Friday we went our separate ways – Corrie to Dar es Salaam for her flight to Manchester and us back to Mvumi. She is a good friend and we will miss her.

Next week – back to work and start to prepare for our return to England.

Farewells

Two years is a long time away from home.

This week the Hospital VSO Doctor, Dr Corrie, packed up to return to England after 2 years in Tanzania. For the last 18 months she has run the HIV clinic and been responsible for the obstetrics and gynaecology wards of the Hospital as well helping train the student clinical officers at the training school. For those who work in Africa for any length of time the experience can be very frustrating. The novelty of a different culture soon goes thin and it can become very wearing because it feels that you are achieving little compared to what you know is possible, and Africans have a different view of priorities and relationships.

Her last weekend in Dodoma was spent saying goodbye to friends including going to a party with some of the many babies she has helped deliver here. She has carried out almost 200 operations including caesaerean and sterilisations.

It is also a bit of a milestone in the life of the Hospital. The first white doctor (from Australia) arrived when the Hospital first opened in 1938, and there has probably been a continuity of ‘western’ doctors since then – Dr Corrie is, for the time being, the end of that line. For the first time the Medical staff at the Hospital will be entirely Tanzanian with no-one being a qualified Doctor to European standards with 'Drs'having no more than 3 years basic training.

We had a special ‘farewell’ meal on Thursday night when the entire Mzungu community of Mvumi met – that is us, Dr Corrie, Julia and the two ‘gappies’ at the school Zoe and Hamish (who were also starting their return journey to England the next day). Irene baked a special cake, and our gift was a wooden carving of a doctor by one of the nearby villagers.

Irene had an interesting day visiting a nearby village nursery school, at Mgangwa. She listened to the children reciting their English lessons. Bearing in mind English is their third language (after Swahili and Chigogo) she was amazed at the language skills of the 3 to 5 year olds. Irene’s contribution was to teach them a song about colours; ‘I can sing a rainbow’. On the way there she also saw a whirlwind which we understand can be quite dangerous on occasions.

When we go for walks around the village there are usually 3 things that are shouted at us by the children:

‘Mzungu, mzungu’, or

‘I want money’, or

‘Picha, picha!’.

The first statement we either tend to ignore, or Malcolm tries to say in his best Swahili ‘Where? I don’t see a Mzungu’ which tends to confuse them.

The second we reply that we won’t give any money. The problem is that the more the children think that white people will give them money, the more they will pester them and the more they will expect to be given money rather than working for it.

When asked to have their picture taken, we often oblige. The children get excited about seeing their pictures instantly on a digital camera as almost all cameras here use film. There was just such an opportunity last Sunday when Malcolm went for a walk. A group of children, several of the girls carrying heavy buckets of food or water on their heads, were delighted


At work Malcolm has started to prepare for leaving. The annual audit is taking place at the Eye Department have eventually agreed to make their books available for audit along with those of the Hospital – not much of an achievement after almost 17 months! Malcolm also ‘hosted’ a seminar by NSSF to Hospital staff and staff from the secondary school to explain their entitlement to pensions, health care and maternity benefits. It seemed to go down well as many staff do not realise their rights – at least Malcolm thinks so as it was all in Swahili – except for his introduction.

Egg production from the remaining 4 hens has slowed down to about one a day. This means total of about 150 eggs costing £46 or just over 30p each.

Although the Hospital is saying goodbye to Corrie, we are not doing so just yet. On Saturday we go with her on safari to Mikumi nature reserve followed by a few days in Iringa – but more of that next week.

In the dark.

Last weekend was spent very pleasantly in a MAF guest house in Dodoma, with a meal and board game on Friday evening followed by a very lazy Saturday surfing the net in the guest house. Fortunately we picked up our “repaired” laptop Friday morning and we had already taken the loaned one in to Dodoma with us so we were able to have one each for the weekend. Unfortunately our “repaired“ laptop is still not functioning properly but we hope it will tide us over for the next few weeks until we return to England when it can be repaired under a service agreement. On the Sunday we again helped to lead the worship at the cathedral and then went on with Corrie to a new Italian restaurant for an early farewell lunch for her.

For Malcolm the saga of the Hospital payroll has got more bizarre. For July we received, for the first time, a Government grant and payroll for almost all the staff. However, almost everyone‘s pay was wrong. Last weeks the Hospital chief nurse (Patron) and new Hospital Accountant visited the Ministry of Health in Dar es Salaam to sort things out. This week we received:
- the pay-slips for July, which were different to the amounts we were told to pay staff
- the payroll for august, with many staff being paid twice but with differing amounts

It is not clear why this has happened but it does mean additional work to sort out which to pay staff.

Because of the Hospital’s better financial position it is time to start dealing with the large debts the Hospital has built up over the year. There is enough money now to clear the outstanding electricity bill. Malcolm also visited NSSF who are owed about £30,000 plus penalties (about 3 months total salary bill for the Hospital). Draft proposals for how the Hospital could pay this debt month by month were agreed and now need to be formalised.

The external auditor also arrived this week for the annual audit. He is a lot happier with the records and the audit is taking less time than it used to. This does have the ‘disadvantage’ that he has more time to check into things and come up with good ideas for improvements – things which the new accountant can follow up on! Malcolm also submitted his report into an investigation of an irregularity to the Diocese General Secretary and Hospital Medical Officer in Charge. It took a long time to investigate – let’s see what happens next!!!!

On Monday evening we were invited to a meal at the gappies house and enjoyed beef burgers and rice, an interesting combination. We also watched a couple of early episodes of “Black Adder” due to that amazing wonder of technology know as a video player!

On Wednesday we felt the time had come to start culling the chickens. None of them had been laying for a while, two because they had recently hatched the sadly deceased chick, and two because they seemed to be having “phantom pregnancies” sitting all day on nothing at all! Logic said that George the cockerel should go as then the hens might start laying again. However, we rather liked George as he was quite a character, so we asked Momma Asante for her opinion and sure enough George was Wednesday’s tea! He was certainly very tasty and his death has been justified by the arrival of an egg on Friday morning.

The slow-down in egg production has meant little change to the cost. However, George was worth about £4 which means 142 eggs for £46 – 32p each.

In Tanzania power cuts are a regular feature of life. In Mvumi they are fairly infrequent, normally caused we believe by broken lines as the electricity company seem to try and protect the hospital. However, at this time of year the cuts increase as most electricity is produced by hydro-electric schemes and now water is running out. On both Thursday and Friday nights we had to get out the kerosene lamp and candles in order to see and eat dinner. As we had dinner with Julia, Corrie and the ‘gappies’, Zoe and Hamish this made for an ‘atmospheric’ meal – both in the quality of the light and the smell of kerosene.

Friday was also the first full day of the Healthcare Christian Fellowship annual conference. Representatives from across Tanzania attend, this year at Mvumi hospital. Although Malcolm could not understand the session he attended (being in Swahili), the worship was somewhat lively!

Next week we look forward to:
- a trip to Hombolo winery and lake

and we don’t look forward to:
- Dr Corrie’s last week at the hospital before she returns to England

Janet and John, Zoe and Hamish

When I first learnt to read English I remember using ‘Janet and John’ books to read to my teacher. ‘Here is John. John has the ball. John likes the ball’.

Dr Corrie has just given us the equivalent book, but in Swahili. It is Book 1 for primary school children. But it doesn’t talk about balls. ‘Here is mother. Mother is holding a winnowing basket. Mother is winnowing maize’. Maybe I was held back by not learning ‘winnowing’ when I first learnt to read. The book focuses on the local priority for farming and growing food. ‘Here is father. Father has a hoe and a cap. Father is hoeing’. To local children winnowing and hoeing must be familiar daily activities.

St Andrews church building now has a new smooth floor. For the past year we have got used to walking on very rough and dusty concrete, which is bad enough when you are wearing shoes, but extremely difficult for many villagers who prefer to stand and dance in bare feet. On Sunday it was our first service there since the smooth concrete floor has been laid and the walls plastered – the building almost looked complete!

Work continues. Malcolm has spent most of the week helping to sort out the problems with the July payroll so that others can go to the Ministry of Health in Dar Es Salaam at the end of the week to, hopefully, get everyone’s pay corrected. It is also the time when students are returning to college so there has been a flurry of sorting out the payment of fees etc. Finally, he is completing a report into an investigation of the possible theft of money from the Hospital which has taken up a lot of time.

The Bar B Q we expected with the gappies at the Secondary school never happened. Unfortunately both have been ill – Zoe had to go to the eye clinic because her face had swollen perhaps because something got in her eye or a bite. Hamish has been suffering from a stomach bug – perhaps from eating undercooked meat. We did have a meal together when Julia returned from her holiday, but kept away from meat with a vegetable lasagne. Squashie has also returned to his rightful home, although looking after him has meant we have both had a bit of exercise.

The other social highlight of the week was when Corrie returned from Dar es Salaam with a cauliflower – the first we have ever seen here. She had thought about feasting on it by herself but we persuaded her to cook cauliflower cheese – a real luxury.

We also went to a nearby village to hear a choir sing to say farewell to Craig. He is an American teacher who has come to the Amani agricultural project during his summer holiday in the past 2 years, and has joined the local church choir.

There has been a slow down in the production of eggs. This is partly because the ‘mothers’ of the chicks stopped laying when they were hatching eggs and haven’t started again, and the other two have gone “broody” and stopped laying in favour of sitting on stones! We also ‘swopped’ our best layer with an old hen of Mama Asante’s sister as it seemed a waste to kill and eat a hen in its prime. The result is that we only had 1 egg last week – hardly worth counting.

This weekend we are spending in Dodoma at the MAF guest house. Our computer has been reformatted, and although it appears to work in sorts, there is clearly something wrong with the disc drive –hopefully it will keep going until we return to England.

Our friends and other animals.

Squashie is back!!

Last year we looked after the Walton’s Alasatian for 3 months – this year he is being fostered by Julia – but we are acting as surrogate parents whilst she is on holiday.

This has its blessings – and its problems.

To the locals Squashie is respected. All the other dogs in the area are smaller and less fearsome – Whenever he goes for a walk the villagers back away because of his size and rough looks (with a large scar on his face from an operation). This means that even though he is very friendly he is a deterrent to thieves and trouble makers. He also means that we both feel a bit guilty and have been taking him for walks. Malcolm even went for a 4 hour walk last Saturday to climb the second nearest hill to the village. Last year we reported how Squashie struggled on what should have been a 3 hour walk to the nearest hill and in fact for a fourth hour he virtually crawled back, resting every 200 yards or so in the shade of a tree. (Blog of 20th June 2008). This year he was much fitter and quite lively even though he, and Irene’s other ‘pet’, both fell asleep when they returned.

However....

We had hoped to talk more about the new chick, named Stumpy 2. What do you get when you mix a dog with a chick?? Unfortunately Squashie managed to get hold of the chick and injure its leg or wing. This has caused the other hens to reject it so, despite Irene careful nursing, we fear that it will go the way of the previous 2 chicks. It is just as well we hadn’t planned to make a living out of raising chicks.

We have started the count down. This means planning the week by week reduction, or should I say the consumption, of the hens. Jane went this week – though rather than eat such a good laying hen we swopped her for an older hen of Mama Asante’s sister, and ate that instead. This makes eggonomics more complicated. Each hen is worth about £3 so with about 11 eggs this week we have had 140 in total for £50 – or 36p each.

On Saturday were invited to lunch at the home of our Swahili teacher, Zena. Her main work is connected to the church, and she runs a nursery school each morning for about 35 children. In Tanzania only Primary education is free (from age 7). Parents pay about £1 a month for the children to go to nursery school. This is too much for many because of the shortage of food this year, so the numbers at Zena’s school are down from the usual 50.

On Sunday we were guests of honour at a small village church, Bethania. For the first time Malcolm was asked to read one of the bible passages – in Swahili. This is a bit of a challenge when you don’t know the language. Irene comments that there was no laughter but this may just mean they were just too confused!!!!

At work the good news is that the Government now pay for all Hospital staff. All non-medical staff had pay rises of about 30% as they are now on Government grades. The problem is that because the Government used an old staff list many have been given the wrong salary which now has to be sorted out. Also, those staff working in the Training schools are upset as they are not included so have had just the same salary as last month – it’s a feature of human nature that they were no worse off, except they felt they were worse off as others were better off. Malcolm was involved in meeting the cooks who refused to cook lunch for the student nurses. When the Medical Officer in Charge had calmed them down, Malcolm then went with him to share in the late nurses lunch at 3.30pm - every problem has a silver lining.

As we are the only Mzungus here at the moment we have welcomed 2 new gap year students (gappies), Zoe and Hamish, who will be working at the secondary school for the next month. It is the first time we’ve needed to help new people acclimatise to the new culture, and advise them on how not to get too ripped off by some of the shop keepers.

For the coming week:
- A Bar-b-Q with the gappies
- Welcome Dr Corrie and Julia back from their holidays
- Get ready for the Hospital Auditor
- More walks with Squashie?