We are only Tourists here.

It seems strange being mere tourists, doing touristy things in Africa.

We remember learning at school about the many battles that the British fought here in the 19th century against the Zulus and Boers, and we had the chance to visit some of the Battlefields over a long weekend. Probably the best known battle was the subject of Michael Caine’s first film, Zulu , which was about the defence of the Rorke’s Drift Mission station in 1879. Not only was this of interest from a historical perspective (when about 100 British (mainly Welsh) soldiers held out against 4000 Zulus), but the site and original mud brick buildings might also have been similar to the first Mission station established in 1900 at Mvumi – out in the wilds of African countryside, miles from any other buildings other than scattered native huts. Unlike today when Mvumi has grown to a village of 12,000 or more people.

The defence of Rorkes Drift immediately followed the massacre of 1,000 British (mainly Welsh) troops at Isandlwana, about 9 miles away (the subject of a later film, Zulu Dawn). Our guide, Foy, explained the history of the war, which was initiated by the British in order to conquer territory. The Zulu king did all he could to prevent it and never understood why his friends, the British, wanted to fight.

Apart from that we are mainly lazying around. Malcolm has been working on some DVD’s including a video of the service at St Andrew’s Church on 4th October which he has posted on YouTube. It can be found by searching for ‘the crawford clan’ or by URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjXmZX3zCmE

On Sunday we return to Tanzania prior to preparing to return to England.

Farewells

Again – two blogs for the price of one.

It has been a hectic week packing up and saying farewell. One exciting piece of news was that our church in Chesham had raised at their harvest supper an enormous sum for the Hunger Fund here. Although wonderful it did give us the problem of how to get the money out of Dodoma’s ATMs before we leave and what to do with it, We felt the best thing would be to use half to distribute through the Anglican Churches in Mvumi, by increasing the number of families supported each month by 38, and by extending the support until June next year. The remainder we have asked to go to the Diocese Secondary School to help the poor families of children at the school who are sponsored because they are intelligent but don’t have money to pay secondary school fees.

To mark our departure from Mvumi our church invited us to a special meal after the Sunday service. Because a lot of money has already we past few months for the Hunger Fund and to complete the building we left small sums for each of the choirs and Sunday School, plus a cloth for the altar.

Our friends invited us to a farewell meal at the Dodoma Hotel on Sunday. This included a cake with the inscription ‘Thanks for all the fish’ which is a reference from ‘the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ which had to be explained to some.

And then we left on the next leg – the 8 hour coach ride to Dar es Salaam with our six suitcases and other various bags. Will we all arrive safely in England……….?

A Different World?????

If our operatic society were putting on a concert then there would be weeks of rehearsals, and at least one run through before the performance – but nor so in Tanzania. As we wrote last week, having seen a video of their performance in our house, the Mamajus Kwaya asked if they could come again the next Saturday to have not one, but 9 more songs videoed.

Naively Malcolm thought this would just be a run through in the house similar to the previous time. Not so. These were highly choreographed productions using the features of our garden including the child’s climbing frame. The nine songs were completed one after the other without a pause, to a backing tape they had produced themselves a few weeks earlier. And all this without a run through in the garden. It was difficult for Malcolm to keep track of what was going on.

Now all he has to do is produce some DVD’s.

On Sunday we began the long journey via Dodoma and Dar es Salaam to Pretoria for a holiday with Malcolm’s sister, Helen and Partner Chris. She started work at the British Consulate about 3 months ago. Some things are familiar in Africa. The way that as we left the plane to walk the long corridors to find our baggage, at one point we passed a group of 6 staff idly chatting to walk down a corridor to meet other passengers coming towards us as the door at the end was locked so they assumed we’d gone the wrong way – but it was simply the staff had forgotten to unlock the door. This is Africa!

Pretoria in many ways is like England. The weather is temperate, as they move from spring to summer. The grass is green and the buildings are smart and European. However, we have been warned that it is not as safe here as in Europe or Tanzania with concerns about mugging. Helens house is in a gated compound with guards and electric fences. An automated finger print reader is used to allow people in or out – as neither of us are registered in effect we are locked in!!!!!
We went for a trip on a ‘Hop on, Hop off’ tour bus that passes some of the tourist’s spots in Pretoria. This was billed as having a ‘Professional Tour Guide’ to explain the history of Pretoria. Unfortunately the bus was 20 minutes late and there was no tour guide but simply western pop music. However, the ticket was only £5 so it was good value and we were almost the only customers. We visited the Parliament building and the monument celebrating the first Dutch trekkers who traveled by ox-wagon train into the interior of South Africa to found states such as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

Next week we plan a few days visiting battlefields near Ladysmith and Rourkes Drift before returning to Tanzania on Sunday.

Homeward Bound?

Two blogs for the price of one this week!!

This weekend we start of long journey back to England. The Hospital hade a farewell lunch for us on Thursday, when we were presented with a kanga and some material for Malcolm to have a shirt made – though we might find a better use for it as it is a bit bright for Western fashion, and Malcolm is known fro his sartorial taste!!!!! Ir ene has spent most of the week packing up. What we are not taking back to England, or a few item we are leaving in case we return to Tanzania, we have given to friends or our house workers.

When a ‘mzungu’ leaves a common experience is to have a long series of visitors who come to say goodbye – which is very nice. Unfortunately it is also their last opportunity to ask for money so it does get a bit wearing as they don’t realize that although that is normal for their own culture, for westerners it feels like all they want is our money. Hey ho – you get used to it.
When Dr Corrie left a few weeks ago she did the sensible thing. For the last 2 or 3 weeks she only did limited work at the Hospital because the other staff would have to cope when she left, so it was better if they coped whilst she was there to help.

Did Malcolm do the sensible thing? Did he heck!

Whenever he leaves a job he always tries to do lots of things at the end. In addition to sorting out the accounts of the Eye Department, answering auditors queries, sorting out PAYE annual returns, leaving notes on what to do when the September payroll is received from Government (which has not arrived yet), write a final report on action taken for the Medical Officer in Charge and a host of other things he was also pleased to do some work on a system for the Secondary School accounts and payroll. Still, he thinks he has dealt with everything.

After a farewell at our church, St Andrews, on Sunday we go to Dodsoma for the evening and a meal with friends at the Dodoma Hotel. Monday a 600km coach ride to dare s Salaam and on Tuesday we fly to Johannesburg for the 60km drive to Pretoria.We might be on our way back to England – but its in the wrong direction!

This is Tanzania!

The temperature is in the early 40s and climbing, electricity cuts are getting more frequent, water is getting scarcer, there’s been an outbreak of cholera on the edge of the district and 2 men in Malcolm’s office have typhoid; time to go home?

But not yet.

Power cuts are getting more and more frequent. A few weeks ago Malcolm spoke to the General Manager of the local electricity company. Apparently the problem is that there is too much demand on the national grid for the cables to handle and so they are instructed to schedule cuts in parts of the network. He did assure us that there would be no more than 2 cuts a week. This week we had 3, the longest being all day Friday – which is a bit of a problem as that is one day when operations are carried out and the Hospital has limited back-up. Would you fancy having an operation not knowing if the equipment was going to stop working because of a power cut? Fortunately, in a sense, electrical equipment is limited here.

Two of the cuts were at dusk, from 6.30pm, just when Irene was cooking dinner. Having been shown how wagogo cook she quickly adapted to a charcoal fire to cook the meals, and even boiled a cup of tea on a wood fire on Friday. Who needs an Aga?

And power cuts mean less water as it is pumped by the Hospital from a borehole.

Malcolm was feeling a bit feverish and started coughing on Thursday so for peace of mind went to have a routine malaria test. It was negative but apparently a virus is affecting many people in the village. Has swine flu arrived in Tanzania? We hope not, but it probably would seem a blessing compared to Malaria, Typhoid, cholera………….

Mama Asante invited us for a meal. The chicken we had given her the previous week was there – on the plates and we provided the soda (which is usually drunk as a ‘pudding’. Her husband was there, as well as her 2 youngest children, Iluma and Asante.

Last Sunday we were invited to the Good Samaritan church. One of the memorable items in the service was their ‘Mamas’ choir which played a traditional chigogo drumming item. For mainly pensioners it was a very lively performance! Unfortunately Malcolm hadn’t taken his video camera so only got a poor quality video on his digital camera. It might be an activity that the Mother’s Union might want to take up in England.

On Wednesday we had a ‘video evening’ with a difference. Very few people have electricity in the village so they have no TVs or DVD players. We therefore invited the Mamajus choir round to see the videos of their singing at our house 2 weeks ago, and other videos Malcolm has taken of the church over the past 18 months. It was such a novelty that they wanted to see themselves singing 5 times. The first time was in silence as for some it was the first time they had seen moving images of themselves. Each time the video was shown there were more and more comments and laughter. The next problem is, they want to return this Saturday and record on video more songs!!!

It continues to be fun dealing with the bank. Changing cheque signatories gets more and more difficult. Over a month ago we started the process of replacing Dr Corrie with Dr James. The Hospital cashier has been sent away 3 times by the bank;, each time they want something more. We have got the form completed, signatory card completed, photograph taken, Tanzanian ID card, letter from Village Councillor that the person is who he says he is, evidence of residenc video Manajusy, copy of minutes of Hospital committee approving change, letter from me saying Committee approved change, letter from Diocese Accountant approving change. A few weeks ago I joked to our Chief Cashier that the next thing they will want is Dr James’ little finger. This time, the new requirement is that they need him to travel 40km to Dodoma so that he can have his fingerprint taken (the old fashioned way with blue ink). It wouldn’t be so bad but they don’t take fingerprints on cheques and there probably is nobody at the bank skilled in checking fingerprints. In the meantime we are trying to pay suppliers to keep the HIV clinic open. This is Tanzania!

Next week we have a break as we visit Malcolm’s sister in South Africa. From what we can gather although it is still Africa, Pretoria will be a completely different way of life to what we are used to here. Our Swahili will be no use whatsoever (except to confuse touts maybe) and it does not sound so peaceful – we shall see.

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!!!