New birth and other beginnings

Great excitement. On Monday Stepheni the gardener told us our chicken, Jet, had succeeded in hatching the eggs she had so carefully been sitting on for most of the last month. We are now the proud “grandparents” of two tiny chicks, beautifully soft and cute, but mottled brown and white rather than yellow. She is a very protective mother and won’t let the other hens, or us, anywhere near the chicks without a fight. It is lovely to watch her taking the food from the bowl and breaking it up into smaller parts for the chicks to eat, they rarely stray more than 20 cms away from her and nestle under her wings when she sits down. In addition there have been 6 eggs so the average cost per egg is now about £1.50 (28 eggs for £43) less the value of 2 chicks.

Irene’s Tanzanian name is Mama Davidi (Mother david - being our eldest son). She draws the line, however, at being called Bibi Cuku (Grandmother chicken)

Stepheni and Mama Asante were fascinated to see some photos of our grandson that Malcolm had been sent for Father’s Day. Particularly those taken at the zoo with exotic animals. In a country with elephants, monkeys, snakes, large spiders, multi coloured birds etc (all of which can be seen in this area now or in recent years) they were amazed to see……..Guinea Pigs. Still, they are native to South America rather than Europe which makes them quite exotic I suppose.

The rest of the week has passed pretty quietly. Malcolm went to Dodoma on Wednesday to discus the hospital’s repayments of debt owing to NSSF (about 100 million shillings!!! - enough to run the whole Hospital for 2 months. NSSF is similar to National Insurance. He wasn’t looking forward to it as he had just had a difficult telephone conversation with the area manager he was meeting, when she threatened to take him / the Hospital back to court. Fortunately the finances of the Hospital are slowly improving which means they managed to come to a reasonably amicable agreement (mainly that we agree that in a few weeks time we will agree the timescales for beginning to repay the debt, and pay something off in the meantime) and he still remains out of Tanzanian prison!

It is also almost the start of the beginning of a new financial year which means that he will need to carry out stock takes and prepare to finalise the accounts. The new accountant should join the Hospital on 1^st July so there will be a few months to hand over the work.

Building work is being completed at the Hospital. The new Nursery for premature babies has just been opened – the technology is simple with babies kept in baby baths rather than incubators, and the tiled room kept warm by a simple heater.. but it is a big improvement on the previous room which was unhygienic with mould on the walls because of the humidity. In addition a covered walkway is being built between the labour and maternity wards. Not so important at this time of year, but in the summer when the heavy monsoon rains come the last thing a woman in labour needs is a drowning as she is trolleyed between the wards!!!!!!! Talk about waters breaking! – more like the flood!!

Irene has returned to the filing office. Her ‘mission’ is to get additional shelving so that by the time we leave she will at least know there is enough space to store files for the foreseeable future – a mission she failed to achieve last year.

In the coming week:

- we meet with church leaders to distribute the second month’s ‘Hunger Fund;

- the new accountant starts on Wednesday

- stock taking and other end of year fun

Wet and dry chickens

A lovely, relaxing, long weekend on the beach at Kigamboni near Dar es Salaam was marred only by having to say goodbye to our good friend John Clark. He returned to England on Tuesday to go back to his work at Eton College where he will in principle be deputy head, although with a different title. Unfortunately they have been quarantined because of an outbreak of Swine Flu (which is quite ironic) - but he is fearless!! He has spent 3 years as head master of Mvumi secondary school and will be greatly missed by all. We spent a long time on the beach where we saw jellyfish, a camel and a herd of cows. Most of us went for a sail on a traditional fishing dhow and got absolutely drenched - Malcolm stayed behind to keep dry., justifying this as a non-swimmer, if the boat sank then he wouldn’t need saving putting others at risk!!! Chicken!!

(Talking of which, we have now had 6 more eggs. Over the weekend 4 were laid. We usually lets them out of their run into the fenced off garden for some exercise and “grub eating” but has found that they don’t lay when given this freedom. Obviously being kept in there small pen encourages laying, which may be an argument for factory eggs? The total so far is 22 eggs for £43 – less than £2 each!!!!!)

For our final meal with John we visited an unusual Ethiopian restaurant in Dar es Salaam where you end up eating your table cloth! Don’t worry it is made of dough and the food was excellent.

Whilst in Dar Malcolm spent a happy morning visiting shops to get copies of receipts to assist an audit investigation. He also visited the Ministry of Health to find out more about the grants the Hospital should receive – Irene and Co. spent the time on the beach

Returning to Mvumi we were pleased to see that Stumpy was still coming to sleep in the veranda and that our house hadn’t been broken into. Our Swahili teacher had sent us a text whilst we were away to say that her home had been robbed whist she was at church. For local people to be the victims of such crime illustrates the growing desperation in a community with poor crops. The money she had saved was to buy food so its loss will be a hardship.

At work Irene is continuing to tidy up the medical files. Malcolm is helping to sort out the medical stores ready for and end of year stock-take, and learning about the use of all sorts of medical equipment. The Hospital Matron, Rehema Sawe, has worked hard to get the stores into order over the past year and has introduced a basic but simple stores system - a great improvement over last year when, because of lack of space, the medical stores was a jumble of boxes in no particular order or system. It is even looking professional!!! Well done Rehema.

We think next week will be a ‘nothing special’ week – but we wait and see!!!!

Imagine……………………. and hard work

Just imagine you have heard that rabies has been found in your area, and that Hospital has been told to kill all dogs that stray into the grounds.

Imagine that in the village the way locals kill a suspect dog is far from quick and humane as they only have stones for weapons, and you’re not sure how the hospital plan to cull theirs. You feel that this is a false alarm, an unnecessary panic as although someone may have been bitten no one has suffered from more than the actual bite and no actual case of rabies has been confirmed; but you certainly wouldn’t want the risk of anyone getting bitten by a rabid dog. Imagine that as you hear this report an affectionate, loyal, friendly but determinedly free willed, old hospital dog called Stumpy is sleeping in your veranda. What do you do?

I certainly wish that imagining that scenario was all we had to do this week but unfortunately it actually happened. What did we do about Stumpy? Well, we let him stay in the veranda all night and then in the morning, much against his will, we put him in our fenced off garden, fed and watered him and hoped he would settle down happily for a few days until the panic was over. Two minutes latter he disappeared into the village; Houdini couldn’t have done a better job! He still returns in the morning and goes out at night. It’s as if he realises all the other dogs from the Hospital have disappeared and he is safer in the veranda during the day.

During the week Malcolm attended two important meetings. On Tuesday he sat on the interview panel for the hospitals new accountant. (Such is the prevalence of “Chinese whispers” here that a rumour immediately went round the hospital saying he had left, presumably they thought HE was having an interview!) After a long day the vacancy was offered to a promising and young candidate so hopefully when Malcolm leaves Mvumi there will be someone to carry on the work.

On Wednesday there was the first Board Meeting for the new Designated District Hospital, chaired by the Bishop and attended by representatives of the District Council. The meeting went well although the Principals of the Training schools would not be happy as they were instructed by the Bishop to manage the deductions of Income Tax from their allowances properly.

It was also the end of an era for Mvumi. John Clark, Headmaster of the Secondary School, returns to his job at Eton College next week and so it was a time for farewell, On Thursday the remaining ‘Mzungus’ (us, Dr. Corrie and Julia) had a last supper with John and two gap year students. A present for him was a video of John’s time in Mvumi, part of which covering the Secondary School has been posted on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MEu6_8bh6I&feature=channel

or search for thecrawfordclan.

We shall certainly miss him – but not just yet. On Friday we join him for a trip to Dar es Salaam, for a break on the beach before he flies to good old blighty on Tuesday.

For next week:

- we have a nice break in Dar es Salaam after a busy week in Mvumi

- Malcolm spends a day in Dar seeking evidence of a potential fraud and visiting the Ministry of Health

PS – cost of eggs update. No more cost, but no more eggs either!!! So still £43 for 16 eggs. Maybe they are roasters … they have been warned

A wee bit of Scottish Culture, at last!!!

Last weekend saw us go to the 50^th birthday party for Carol (someone we know from Dodoma) , who wanted to have a Ceilidh. Malcolm even had his hair cut for the event!!!! So you would have seen us energetically Scottish dancing in an aircraft hanger owned by MAF in Dodoma, surrounded by airplanes and other bits of engineering. Well at least Malcolm was dancing a bit energetically; Irene found her dodgy knee didn’t quite take to the reels. However, because the music was recorded and there was not an experienced caller, part way through to everyone’s delight she decided she could do better and took over, and began calling the dances. This is the first time she has ever, ever done this with adults - maybe a new career beckons! The next day we followed this by attending the English speaking service in the cathedral where we joined Corrie as the music group. There’s no such thing as taking a back seat here.

During the week we were invited for a meal to Mama Asantes house. Her door frame had recently collapsed. However, that didn’t stop the invite. Unlike some of the houses we have been invited to, Mama Asante’s house doesn’t have smooth floors and painted walls but is a simple construction of mud bricks with rough walls and floor. However the welcome couldn’t have been warmer and we were treated to meat and rice which would have been quite an expense for her and she would have saved up over many weeks. During the evening we discovered that she was down to her last bucket of maize. We had given her a salary advance when we arrived which should have provided her with adequate food. However, we believe that, as is the culture here, when one person has some food or money they are expected to share this with friends or other members of the family, so her money will have gone, Because her husband suffers from epilepsy they survive on what we pay for part time work (about £16 per month) and growing tomatoes. A bucket of maize costs £4 and lasts about 3 weeks (if no family come to visit). They have no money to buy any more. And yet, because she has a job they would probably not be regarded as desperate enough to deserve a share of the Hunger Fund we distributed last week.

At work it was decided that next Wednesday the Hospital DDH Governing Board will meet. This is the first meeting since the Hospital became a Designated District Hospital. Malcolm is therefore desperately putting together a report on the financial position and preparing a budget. It will be interesting to see how the meeting develops, and what other information will be discussed.

There will also be interviews next week for a new accountant and administrator. Malcolm visited the Diocese General Secretary in Dodoma to discuss arrangements for the interviews and to prepare questions. If successful it will mean the Hospital will have its first full-time accountant for over 18 months. Bizarrely, whilst at the Diocese HQ Malcolm met the former accountant who had left under a cloud taking with him all the financial records.

The egg saga continues. We were quite impressed as last weekend the chickens had produced 4 eggs in 2 days; this means that two chickens must have been laying. However Jet has become broody and we have decided to let her keep 2 eggs to sit on and hopefully hatch. Since then only 1 other egg has appeared in 5 days! We cant decide if this is because Jet is now hogging the communal nest or whether its because their food has run a bit low. Malcolm has just managed to bring a large sack of chicken food back from his trip to Dodoma so maybe that will encourage them again. Total cost is now £43 for 16 eggs - £2.70 each.

Next week:

- Interviews for a new accountant on Tuesday

- First DDH Health Board on Wednesday

- John Clark, secondary school headmaster, returns to Eton College on Friday

- Will the cost of eggs drop???? Will any more eggs drop????

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)