It’s the shoes. Everyone here is poor to some extent, but it’s the ones without shoes that I notice are the poorest. For a long time, I hardly notice and pay little attention to feet but when I was walking alone in the town center of Kibwana, I look down at the feet of women selling their produce on floor mats on the dirt or children carrying large containers of water on their heads and see their tough beat up feet lacking the soles that my feet have never been without. The more I think about it, the more I notice it. In the ruttiest of huts, the entire family is barefoot tending to animals, machete-ing grass or playing. When I join the local boys or girls for soccer they are all barefoot. I think about trying to be tough or at least relating to their experience but realize real quickly that I won’t even last 5 minutes before stepping on some sharp rock or thorn or scorpion. I look down at my sensitive feet that burn in the hot California beach sand and my roughly pedicured toe nails and see yet another class and socio-economic distinction.
If you’ve ever been to sub-Saharan Africa and worked with locals, you may take funny notice at the secondhand clothing that Africans wear. It’s pretty much the clothes that are not only secondhand and left for the Salvation Army, but it’s the best of the best that don’t get sold. Sometimes you see a Blockbuster or Cracker Barrel employee polo and other times you see pick up lines, neon colored track suits, band camp tee shirts or other obviously unwanted apparel. Growing up, my parents always bought clothes brand new from department stores. I honestly didn’t even know what Salvation Army or secondhand clothing was until like college. Even shopping for clothes at Wal-Mart never really crossed my mind unless it was a t-shirt needed for a sports team fabric painting session. My family was not wealthy, at least not by north Jersey standards. But here was an entire village and possibly country or majority of the continent that lived off of the most used and unwanted shoes, shirts and items. I think it was after being exposed to this norm last summer that I stopped shopping for clothes for myself and if I did buy some, it had to be unbelievably cheap.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
6/22/11 Microloan Meeting
Today was supposed to be a big day. The coaches were going to meet with the village secretary that will be signing over a plot of land to be the permanent girls soccer field. The boy with the epilepsy disorder and delinquent history was being brought back to Shirati for interviewing. I arranged for a 2pm meeting at the SHED office for all the women interested in a microloan.
The electricity has been functioning at about 50% of the time in Shirati so charging electronics and photocopying have been limited. I was happy to be able to copy more of the Swahili translated Room for Compassion media release forms used for anyone I take a picture or video of. I know that it’s not necessary to use this permission slip but feel that since it’s what you have to do in the US, I should do so here too. Killion and I walk over to the main village office which is a crumbling brick building void of finished floors. The secretary is not in, so we hang around Kibwana for a little bit. We don’t end up meeting with the village secretary about the soccer field but the coaches are very positive about it and think it will happen. They say that the town would like the girls team to be called the Shirati Shooting Stars Girls team if they inherit this field, which sounds awesome to me.
The interview with Harun goes well. The boy has small visible scars all over his arms. He answers the interview questions but is sometimes interrupted by his family correcting what he says. He is coherent and speaks up but at times seems confused. He wants to go back to school and I tell him to send more information about the school in Dar es Salaam to the SHED office about the school name and tuition.
I anxiously prepare for the microloan meeting with a brief agenda. Earlier in the morning, I was able to discuss the lending terms with Rosie and Josiah. We discussed the idea of lending out to a group of 5 women at $20 per woman with a repayment period of 3 months. No details on how often the loan will be repaid or interest rate has yet been publicized. I also run out to buy composition notebooks and pens for the women so they can write notes for the meeting. Killion and I were expecting maybe about 5 women or a max of 10. There was a total of 12 women that showed up with a few of them arriving very late. I briefly introduce myself and Room for Compassion and then talk about how microloans can help women create small businesses. I continue to say that we want to seek out the women with the most financial need combined with the best business plans. The groups are to be set up into five women and the loan will be the responsibility of the entire group so that if one woman defaults, the rest of the group must absorb her loan. The microloan solidarity group will be required to meet weekly and repay either weekly or biweekly, business classes will also accompany this model. After the explanation, the women were given a chance to ask questions and they had a lot of good questions. One woman asked if they could just instead do individual loans rather than group ones, another asked if we could raise the initial loan start since it is very low, there was a concern about what the interest rate would be and a question about how to repay the loan.
After the meeting, Killion and I interview each woman individually about her background and her proposal. Some women had ideas about expanding their current business, selling fish, tailoring and even a butcher shop. It is apparent, however, that some of the women have extensive business experience and success while others have not had any work experience and are in dire poverty. I know we need some way to address this difference. After the meeting, our upcoming objectives are to layout a specific interest and principal repayment table so all of the women can see the schedule as they had requested. I want to leave selection of which women will form the first solidarity group to Killion, Rosie and Josiah. I intend on developing basic business classes for Killion or Rosie to teach every 2-4 weeks, probably about marketing, budget management etc. The microloan program excites me but makes me nervous in case something is blatantly wrong. Most of my experience with microfinance is from reading books and articles so I’m very grateful to have found Rosie who has field experience.
The electricity has been functioning at about 50% of the time in Shirati so charging electronics and photocopying have been limited. I was happy to be able to copy more of the Swahili translated Room for Compassion media release forms used for anyone I take a picture or video of. I know that it’s not necessary to use this permission slip but feel that since it’s what you have to do in the US, I should do so here too. Killion and I walk over to the main village office which is a crumbling brick building void of finished floors. The secretary is not in, so we hang around Kibwana for a little bit. We don’t end up meeting with the village secretary about the soccer field but the coaches are very positive about it and think it will happen. They say that the town would like the girls team to be called the Shirati Shooting Stars Girls team if they inherit this field, which sounds awesome to me.
The interview with Harun goes well. The boy has small visible scars all over his arms. He answers the interview questions but is sometimes interrupted by his family correcting what he says. He is coherent and speaks up but at times seems confused. He wants to go back to school and I tell him to send more information about the school in Dar es Salaam to the SHED office about the school name and tuition.
I anxiously prepare for the microloan meeting with a brief agenda. Earlier in the morning, I was able to discuss the lending terms with Rosie and Josiah. We discussed the idea of lending out to a group of 5 women at $20 per woman with a repayment period of 3 months. No details on how often the loan will be repaid or interest rate has yet been publicized. I also run out to buy composition notebooks and pens for the women so they can write notes for the meeting. Killion and I were expecting maybe about 5 women or a max of 10. There was a total of 12 women that showed up with a few of them arriving very late. I briefly introduce myself and Room for Compassion and then talk about how microloans can help women create small businesses. I continue to say that we want to seek out the women with the most financial need combined with the best business plans. The groups are to be set up into five women and the loan will be the responsibility of the entire group so that if one woman defaults, the rest of the group must absorb her loan. The microloan solidarity group will be required to meet weekly and repay either weekly or biweekly, business classes will also accompany this model. After the explanation, the women were given a chance to ask questions and they had a lot of good questions. One woman asked if they could just instead do individual loans rather than group ones, another asked if we could raise the initial loan start since it is very low, there was a concern about what the interest rate would be and a question about how to repay the loan.
After the meeting, Killion and I interview each woman individually about her background and her proposal. Some women had ideas about expanding their current business, selling fish, tailoring and even a butcher shop. It is apparent, however, that some of the women have extensive business experience and success while others have not had any work experience and are in dire poverty. I know we need some way to address this difference. After the meeting, our upcoming objectives are to layout a specific interest and principal repayment table so all of the women can see the schedule as they had requested. I want to leave selection of which women will form the first solidarity group to Killion, Rosie and Josiah. I intend on developing basic business classes for Killion or Rosie to teach every 2-4 weeks, probably about marketing, budget management etc. The microloan program excites me but makes me nervous in case something is blatantly wrong. Most of my experience with microfinance is from reading books and articles so I’m very grateful to have found Rosie who has field experience.
6/21/11 Amateur
Josiah, a Tanzanian man that grew up in Shirati and went to the states for college and then married Dr. Esther, told me that “sometimes when you learn to drive for the first time, it works ok, but sometimes you can end up crashing.” This analogy was taken as some good advice after I was talking about the different RFC programs, especially jumping straight into microlending and scouting out kids to sponsor. I appreciated his wisdom and eagerly took up his suggestions. The first was to meet with him and Killion and they would help scribe a list of the neediest families in the area to be considered for primary and secondary school. As Josiah mentioned, everyone here is needy of assistance, but you need to find the truly needy. He also then told me that Rosie, the administrative assistant at the SHED office actually has a background in microfinance. I was elated to hear this since being intrigued with microlending, I’ve been longing to start this branch in RFC but am not totally educated on the ins and outs like setting up with amortization tables for principal and interest payments, managing solidarity groups or even what is the ideal amount to start with. For those that are clueless about microfinance as I was until last year, it is the provision of small loans (usually $300 or less) to mostly women so that they can use the loan and start a small business and eventually payback the microloan with interest. Microfinance is one of the most effective means of improving someone’s poverty status while amazingly is financially self-reliant. Once the interest is recouped, the revenue can be used towards other social businesses.
I am planning on holding a meeting tomorrow inviting all of the women we interviewed with Killion last October and some we interviewed just the other day. The point of the meeting is to gather all the women and explain the idea of microloans and have them submit a sort of business plan so that we can choose the most sound plans to fund. Rosie suggested that the best method is to start with a small loan (about $20) and give the women 3 months to repay this loan on a weekly or biweekly basis. She also strongly agrees with me when I suggest that business classes should be held in conjunction to educate the women and ensure success. The women will also be required to meet amongst themselves on a minimum weekly basis.
I spend the rest of the day going into a smaller subvillage across from the airstrip where the girls practice and scout out kids that are in need of school sponsorship. After this, Sarah and I head over to soccer practice at 4pm. I get to give out all those shoes we bought from the market so the girls were thrilled. It was incredible to see this team of girls running around in cleats and sneakers with knee high socks…they looked and played so well! A range rover of a wazungu family pulls over and is excited about the girls team and we have a discussion. The mom is looking for a good sabbatical spot so they drive from Ethiopia to Tanzania and the dad and kids are tagging along for a ride…I thought that was super cool and see myself doing something like that when I have a family.
I am planning on holding a meeting tomorrow inviting all of the women we interviewed with Killion last October and some we interviewed just the other day. The point of the meeting is to gather all the women and explain the idea of microloans and have them submit a sort of business plan so that we can choose the most sound plans to fund. Rosie suggested that the best method is to start with a small loan (about $20) and give the women 3 months to repay this loan on a weekly or biweekly basis. She also strongly agrees with me when I suggest that business classes should be held in conjunction to educate the women and ensure success. The women will also be required to meet amongst themselves on a minimum weekly basis.
I spend the rest of the day going into a smaller subvillage across from the airstrip where the girls practice and scout out kids that are in need of school sponsorship. After this, Sarah and I head over to soccer practice at 4pm. I get to give out all those shoes we bought from the market so the girls were thrilled. It was incredible to see this team of girls running around in cleats and sneakers with knee high socks…they looked and played so well! A range rover of a wazungu family pulls over and is excited about the girls team and we have a discussion. The mom is looking for a good sabbatical spot so they drive from Ethiopia to Tanzania and the dad and kids are tagging along for a ride…I thought that was super cool and see myself doing something like that when I have a family.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
6/20/11 Market Madness: Goats, kids and shoe shopping
Its Monday time, another awesome market day. I know I have a pretty busy day ahead of me. Killion and I bring Babu and Amir (a friend living in the hostel) to the market. Babu is wearing the cutest African outfit. I am happy to see him so well dressed and fed and remember that it was less than a year ago that Babu had the extended abdomen characteristic of starvation or parasites. When we arrive at the market, I know I need to buy 18 pairs of shoes. I also should buy socks for the soccer team but also can’t forget to pick up uniforms for some of the kids I want to sponsor for primary school. I need to remember to pick up food for Teresa just like last week.
I know that bargaining in Tanzania is not like bargaining anywhere else. They hardly drop the price unless you buy in bulk discount and even after then the prices are still high. The nice thing is that unlike in Congo, Thailand, Haiti, Mexico etc, merchants never chase after and harass you until you buy their stuff. I feel bad that I end up spending so much time bargaining and picking out 14 pairs of shoes that I leave Babu to be entertained by Amir. After hard bargaining through Killion, we get a great deal on cleats, sneakers and socks. I liked being able to spend some time with Babu throughout the day and wanted to take him shopping. I ended up purchasing a toothbrush, Swahili reading book, cookies, soccer shoes and soda for Babu. I also relish in the fact that unlike most American 6 year olds, Babu does not ever complain about standing around in the hot sun while I crawl around on piles of shoes and he never once begs to buy everything in the market.
We all walk through the expansive outdoor market and visit the different sections. There is the shoe area, clothing section, rice/beans pile, cassava piles and open field of cows and goats being sold. Amir and I decided that we were going to give goats as a gift for an upcoming wedding we were invited to. I am giddy at the thought of attending a local Tanzanian wedding and even more giddy about bringing a traditional gift. Since we wait til the end of the day to buy the goat, they ran out of female goats, which apparently everybody wants. Amir and I both look at this cute baby goat that’s cow colored and say “aww” at the same time. Then Killion says that the only female goat left has a kid and that for 6,000 Tsh more ($4 USD), we can have both the mom and the kid which happens to be the cow colored baby. So at the end of the market day, I have a goat and a kid, an actual African child, Killion, a huge bag filled with 14 pairs of shoes, 4 school uniforms, a bag of groceries and no ride home since we walked to Obwiri this morning. At first we start to walk back but the baby goat runs amuck, the mom goat tugs and is disobedient to Amir, Babu is taunting the big goat and we have way too much stuff. So then we grab a motorcycle with a red wagon on the back. It reminds me of a Flyer red wagon but grown-up version. After putting both goats in, the baby goat decides to jump out and run around. After nearly getting hit by a car, the baby goat is finally caught by locals that find the whole scenario amusing. The bumpy ride home leads us to the hostel where we tie the goat up and walk Babu to give food to Teresa. I felt pretty accomplished after the market today.
I listen to the pouring rain right now as the electricity is out for the night. Usually I love the rain and always have the urge to run in it or even dance when given the chance after a hot day, but am feeling guilty for enjoying the awesome downpour. I think about how Lucia, Teresa and Anejlina struggling in their huts with the holes in their roof and wonder how they sleep while being rained on.
I know that bargaining in Tanzania is not like bargaining anywhere else. They hardly drop the price unless you buy in bulk discount and even after then the prices are still high. The nice thing is that unlike in Congo, Thailand, Haiti, Mexico etc, merchants never chase after and harass you until you buy their stuff. I feel bad that I end up spending so much time bargaining and picking out 14 pairs of shoes that I leave Babu to be entertained by Amir. After hard bargaining through Killion, we get a great deal on cleats, sneakers and socks. I liked being able to spend some time with Babu throughout the day and wanted to take him shopping. I ended up purchasing a toothbrush, Swahili reading book, cookies, soccer shoes and soda for Babu. I also relish in the fact that unlike most American 6 year olds, Babu does not ever complain about standing around in the hot sun while I crawl around on piles of shoes and he never once begs to buy everything in the market.
We all walk through the expansive outdoor market and visit the different sections. There is the shoe area, clothing section, rice/beans pile, cassava piles and open field of cows and goats being sold. Amir and I decided that we were going to give goats as a gift for an upcoming wedding we were invited to. I am giddy at the thought of attending a local Tanzanian wedding and even more giddy about bringing a traditional gift. Since we wait til the end of the day to buy the goat, they ran out of female goats, which apparently everybody wants. Amir and I both look at this cute baby goat that’s cow colored and say “aww” at the same time. Then Killion says that the only female goat left has a kid and that for 6,000 Tsh more ($4 USD), we can have both the mom and the kid which happens to be the cow colored baby. So at the end of the market day, I have a goat and a kid, an actual African child, Killion, a huge bag filled with 14 pairs of shoes, 4 school uniforms, a bag of groceries and no ride home since we walked to Obwiri this morning. At first we start to walk back but the baby goat runs amuck, the mom goat tugs and is disobedient to Amir, Babu is taunting the big goat and we have way too much stuff. So then we grab a motorcycle with a red wagon on the back. It reminds me of a Flyer red wagon but grown-up version. After putting both goats in, the baby goat decides to jump out and run around. After nearly getting hit by a car, the baby goat is finally caught by locals that find the whole scenario amusing. The bumpy ride home leads us to the hostel where we tie the goat up and walk Babu to give food to Teresa. I felt pretty accomplished after the market today.
I listen to the pouring rain right now as the electricity is out for the night. Usually I love the rain and always have the urge to run in it or even dance when given the chance after a hot day, but am feeling guilty for enjoying the awesome downpour. I think about how Lucia, Teresa and Anejlina struggling in their huts with the holes in their roof and wonder how they sleep while being rained on.
6/18/11 Paralyzed hope
I finally get to work with Killion today. He is the oldest and arguably best translator in Shirati. Mel and I worked with him extensively last summer and he is the one I call on Skype every few months or so to see how Babu and the girls soccer team are doing. My agenda today is to interview families that take care of someone with a disability – both mental and physical. I also mention that I would like to see another new subvillage so we head to one called Michire.
The first family interviewed lives near the Kawiras and SHED hostel where I stay. I heard about a mentally challenged boy that stole money from the SHED hostel and from the Kawiras. The rumor is that he stole on 2 separate occasions and was caught and beaten. Killion suggested we start there and I agree. The boy is named Harun and his mother died a long time ago and his father is a local pastor that is currently studying something seminary related in Kenya. Harun and his stepmother apparently clash and Killion said rumors were flying that she either encouraged him to possibly steal or drove him to steal because of potential mistreatment. At the house, we end up interviewing the stepmother and the boy’s older brother. We find out that Harun suffers from epilepsy and has about 2 seizures a day. When I asked what the family believed as the cause, they said they knew it was a disease and that some people may feel differently in the village believing it could be a bewitchment but they do not listen. Harun was going to primary school but stopped after one year because he was feeling lonely and discouraged after always being made fun of after each seizure. His family said that he displayed aggressive and angry behavior after each seizure as well. They talk about how a good solution for 13 year old Harun, who is currently castaway in another village, would be to send him to a special needs school in Dar-es-Salaam. His father wants to do this but is conflicted between paying for his troubled son or paying for school (his dad is not present during the interview and was currently studying in Kenya). I asked about Harun’s personality and his brother described him as a nice boy that likes to sing, draw and swim. He was always humble and loving before attending school and after being taunted in school, he became withdrawn. I ask about the stealing that Harun recently committed. They say that after each incident, Harun feels like he does not know what he did and willingly cooperates with authorities by giving every detail about the theft and admits everything. The older brother offers to pick up Harun and bring him next Wednesday for us to meet and talk to him. Afterwards, Killion and I discuss the interview and the situation of the boy. I am glad to have such a sympathetic friend and translator. Killion says the boy does have issues and it could stem from problems with the stepmother but that he feels that Harun is inherently good.
We walk in the hot sun for miles and eventually reach the lake. Killion knew of a few families in this area with disabilities. We interview a 36 year old man named Okeyo. Okeyo is paralyzed from the waist down after battling with polio when he was 5 months old. Okeyo’s parents sent him to not only primary and secondary school but also to the University of Udoma. When asked about how we would get to classes and move around, he said that someone would usually put him on their bike and give him rides. He came back to Shirati and learned how to make fishing nets by hand from a friend. He became successful at this and is able to sell fishing nets despite not being able to use his legs. Okeyo is married and has a daughter. We later interview his daughter since she is interested in being considered to be sponsored for primary school. Killion emphasized the good fact that Okeyo’s parents educated him and gave him a chance at a good future. I know that Killion values education by the many stories he tells me and the fact that he works so hard to get all 4 of his kids as much education as they can handle.
We interview two more people and one of the people is a man who used to suffer from epilepsy. Just like Harun, this man said after each seizure he would wake up feeling aggressive. Then at some point in his life, an American intervened and provided him with an anti-seizure drug that he takes once a day and has not had a seizure since. He does not remember the name of the drug but seems very thankful to have found it.
The last house we see at the end of the day was of Freddy Obote. As we sit and are welcomed by the family, we see 13 year old Freddy who is paralyzed from the waist down. Freddy’s mother died a few years ago and his dad lives and works many hours away. He is cared for primarily by his grandmother and some extended family. He spends just about every day of his life sitting outside the family’s brick home using his arms to lift his body back and forth and sometimes sweeping the corner he stays in. When asked if he went to school, Freddy’s family said that he has never gone to school, not even the free primary school which is located across the street from their house. Killion was visibly disturbed by this and inquired why nobody bothered to enroll Freddy and the family shrugged and didn’t really know the answer. We then asked Freddy if he wanted to go to school and he said yes. We asked if the family would consider Freddy attending primary school and everyone agreed that it would be fine. One uncle suggested that he would probably need a wheelchair so that his fellow students could push him to and from class. School starts back up again on July 11th. I am shocked that a boy that is 13 years old was discouraged from going to free primary school because of his disability and that nobody was opposed to him going to school but nobody was going to take the initiative to enroll him either. I compare the life that Freddy now lives to the life of Okeyo who seems to be better off just by circumstance of having parents that believed in education. I have a feeling that if we don’t help enroll Freddy into primary school, he will spend more years of his life hobbling around his property and unable to utilize his normally functioning brain.
I feel like some of the things that I see and the sad stories I relay do not serve the purpose of disheartening anyone nor feeling that the world is overwhelmingly filled with problems. The reason I tell these stories is that they should be heard. Regardless of whether or not people read about the things that go on everyday or see it in person, the truth is that they are real and occur every single day. I always feel that inaction may be the worst of all reactions. It’s natural to feel empathy towards sad situations, but most are far from desperate or hopeless and the challenge lies in how to address the issue.
The first family interviewed lives near the Kawiras and SHED hostel where I stay. I heard about a mentally challenged boy that stole money from the SHED hostel and from the Kawiras. The rumor is that he stole on 2 separate occasions and was caught and beaten. Killion suggested we start there and I agree. The boy is named Harun and his mother died a long time ago and his father is a local pastor that is currently studying something seminary related in Kenya. Harun and his stepmother apparently clash and Killion said rumors were flying that she either encouraged him to possibly steal or drove him to steal because of potential mistreatment. At the house, we end up interviewing the stepmother and the boy’s older brother. We find out that Harun suffers from epilepsy and has about 2 seizures a day. When I asked what the family believed as the cause, they said they knew it was a disease and that some people may feel differently in the village believing it could be a bewitchment but they do not listen. Harun was going to primary school but stopped after one year because he was feeling lonely and discouraged after always being made fun of after each seizure. His family said that he displayed aggressive and angry behavior after each seizure as well. They talk about how a good solution for 13 year old Harun, who is currently castaway in another village, would be to send him to a special needs school in Dar-es-Salaam. His father wants to do this but is conflicted between paying for his troubled son or paying for school (his dad is not present during the interview and was currently studying in Kenya). I asked about Harun’s personality and his brother described him as a nice boy that likes to sing, draw and swim. He was always humble and loving before attending school and after being taunted in school, he became withdrawn. I ask about the stealing that Harun recently committed. They say that after each incident, Harun feels like he does not know what he did and willingly cooperates with authorities by giving every detail about the theft and admits everything. The older brother offers to pick up Harun and bring him next Wednesday for us to meet and talk to him. Afterwards, Killion and I discuss the interview and the situation of the boy. I am glad to have such a sympathetic friend and translator. Killion says the boy does have issues and it could stem from problems with the stepmother but that he feels that Harun is inherently good.
We walk in the hot sun for miles and eventually reach the lake. Killion knew of a few families in this area with disabilities. We interview a 36 year old man named Okeyo. Okeyo is paralyzed from the waist down after battling with polio when he was 5 months old. Okeyo’s parents sent him to not only primary and secondary school but also to the University of Udoma. When asked about how we would get to classes and move around, he said that someone would usually put him on their bike and give him rides. He came back to Shirati and learned how to make fishing nets by hand from a friend. He became successful at this and is able to sell fishing nets despite not being able to use his legs. Okeyo is married and has a daughter. We later interview his daughter since she is interested in being considered to be sponsored for primary school. Killion emphasized the good fact that Okeyo’s parents educated him and gave him a chance at a good future. I know that Killion values education by the many stories he tells me and the fact that he works so hard to get all 4 of his kids as much education as they can handle.
We interview two more people and one of the people is a man who used to suffer from epilepsy. Just like Harun, this man said after each seizure he would wake up feeling aggressive. Then at some point in his life, an American intervened and provided him with an anti-seizure drug that he takes once a day and has not had a seizure since. He does not remember the name of the drug but seems very thankful to have found it.
The last house we see at the end of the day was of Freddy Obote. As we sit and are welcomed by the family, we see 13 year old Freddy who is paralyzed from the waist down. Freddy’s mother died a few years ago and his dad lives and works many hours away. He is cared for primarily by his grandmother and some extended family. He spends just about every day of his life sitting outside the family’s brick home using his arms to lift his body back and forth and sometimes sweeping the corner he stays in. When asked if he went to school, Freddy’s family said that he has never gone to school, not even the free primary school which is located across the street from their house. Killion was visibly disturbed by this and inquired why nobody bothered to enroll Freddy and the family shrugged and didn’t really know the answer. We then asked Freddy if he wanted to go to school and he said yes. We asked if the family would consider Freddy attending primary school and everyone agreed that it would be fine. One uncle suggested that he would probably need a wheelchair so that his fellow students could push him to and from class. School starts back up again on July 11th. I am shocked that a boy that is 13 years old was discouraged from going to free primary school because of his disability and that nobody was opposed to him going to school but nobody was going to take the initiative to enroll him either. I compare the life that Freddy now lives to the life of Okeyo who seems to be better off just by circumstance of having parents that believed in education. I have a feeling that if we don’t help enroll Freddy into primary school, he will spend more years of his life hobbling around his property and unable to utilize his normally functioning brain.
I feel like some of the things that I see and the sad stories I relay do not serve the purpose of disheartening anyone nor feeling that the world is overwhelmingly filled with problems. The reason I tell these stories is that they should be heard. Regardless of whether or not people read about the things that go on everyday or see it in person, the truth is that they are real and occur every single day. I always feel that inaction may be the worst of all reactions. It’s natural to feel empathy towards sad situations, but most are far from desperate or hopeless and the challenge lies in how to address the issue.
6/17/11 Vulnerable elderly
Ever since learning about Teresa’s situation and realizing that the elderly in many societies are outcast, I wanted to learn more about this special population in Shirati. I know that in the Asian culture, being an elderly person usually endows you with a high level of respect, especially in the familial setting. There is even a different Chinese word for “older brother” vs. “younger brother” which differs from most of the Roman language overall term for brother. I always had to refer to everyone older than me with such a salutation growing up and also serve food or show respects to grandparents before doing so to younger aunts, uncles, etc. Now contrast this with the American culture where every year you gain past your early 20’s is regarded with dread and disbelief. Super old grandparents or parents are considered for nursing homes and not typically revered with great respect.
From my brief understanding, in Shirati, elderly parents are usually independent if the husband is still alive. If the husband has passed away (which happens often and early), the wife can be inherited to her husband’s brother or can be left independently. Most commonly, older parents can rely on their children to help care for them and since the average family size consists of 5 children, this system works pretty well. It seems that once in awhile, typically with older women, if she only bears few children and they either die or move away, she can be left alone defenseless. I wanted to learn if there are other people in similar situations today. So I started with a new translator, Mary, a fellow 23 year old that just returned from college in Arusha. We start in Mary’s subvillage, Obeke, which is a new village that I have not been to.
We interview a total of 8 elderly people in Obeke mixed in with a single mom and parents that want their child to be sponsored for secondary school. Some of the elderly people I interviewed were living with their children and being cared for. The families requested for some assistance to care for their parent or in-law. I meet one woman who is slightly younger at 55 years old named Lucia. She lived in a small hut and had a few friends visiting her. She was paralyzed from the leg down, apparently from a TB infection. Her daughter went away to school and her husband has long passed away. She can’t work and depends on neighbors and friends to give her food which means she does not eat everyday. I asked if she felt lonely and she answered yes. Her main request for help is to fix the straw roof of the hut because the rain enters.
Another woman named Anjelina is 75 years old and living alone. In her long lifetime, she had 5 children die. She used to live with her daughter but no longer does (unclear about the reason). She also sometimes goes without eating and relies on friends and neighbors. Much like Lucia, Anjelina requests to have her roof fixed and possible food and to see a doctor. She tells me that the roof fixing costs about 5,000 Tsh which equates to $3.33. I make a physical and mental note about Lucia and Anjelina and think about ways that RFC can help. Maybe a feeding program. How would the food get there and who would be given the money? Perhaps a neighbor would be given a small stipend to help provide meals for these women every day. And if I keep the cell number or have these women visit the SHED office to verify receipt of meals, this could ensure accountability. But, how will we find funding for this program? RFC has barely any money and Mel and I are not financially comfortable enough to be taking on any more. How will this program be self-sustaining…probably not ever financially since it’s a complete hand-out. Maybe if we have sponsored kids, they can have a small obligation to visit designated elderly. In the end, my thoughts wander back to the fact that I can’t do nothing about this. I know that whenever I am able to return to Shirati, the same women will be facing the same hunger issues unless there is an intervention…this is the part that affects me deeply and makes me realize helping them feels more like an obligation than an extraneous thought.
From my brief understanding, in Shirati, elderly parents are usually independent if the husband is still alive. If the husband has passed away (which happens often and early), the wife can be inherited to her husband’s brother or can be left independently. Most commonly, older parents can rely on their children to help care for them and since the average family size consists of 5 children, this system works pretty well. It seems that once in awhile, typically with older women, if she only bears few children and they either die or move away, she can be left alone defenseless. I wanted to learn if there are other people in similar situations today. So I started with a new translator, Mary, a fellow 23 year old that just returned from college in Arusha. We start in Mary’s subvillage, Obeke, which is a new village that I have not been to.
We interview a total of 8 elderly people in Obeke mixed in with a single mom and parents that want their child to be sponsored for secondary school. Some of the elderly people I interviewed were living with their children and being cared for. The families requested for some assistance to care for their parent or in-law. I meet one woman who is slightly younger at 55 years old named Lucia. She lived in a small hut and had a few friends visiting her. She was paralyzed from the leg down, apparently from a TB infection. Her daughter went away to school and her husband has long passed away. She can’t work and depends on neighbors and friends to give her food which means she does not eat everyday. I asked if she felt lonely and she answered yes. Her main request for help is to fix the straw roof of the hut because the rain enters.
Another woman named Anjelina is 75 years old and living alone. In her long lifetime, she had 5 children die. She used to live with her daughter but no longer does (unclear about the reason). She also sometimes goes without eating and relies on friends and neighbors. Much like Lucia, Anjelina requests to have her roof fixed and possible food and to see a doctor. She tells me that the roof fixing costs about 5,000 Tsh which equates to $3.33. I make a physical and mental note about Lucia and Anjelina and think about ways that RFC can help. Maybe a feeding program. How would the food get there and who would be given the money? Perhaps a neighbor would be given a small stipend to help provide meals for these women every day. And if I keep the cell number or have these women visit the SHED office to verify receipt of meals, this could ensure accountability. But, how will we find funding for this program? RFC has barely any money and Mel and I are not financially comfortable enough to be taking on any more. How will this program be self-sustaining…probably not ever financially since it’s a complete hand-out. Maybe if we have sponsored kids, they can have a small obligation to visit designated elderly. In the end, my thoughts wander back to the fact that I can’t do nothing about this. I know that whenever I am able to return to Shirati, the same women will be facing the same hunger issues unless there is an intervention…this is the part that affects me deeply and makes me realize helping them feels more like an obligation than an extraneous thought.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
6/16/11 Soccer sisters
The morning is pretty uneventful, I was working away on my laptop. For the last few days of being here, I’ve been trying to track down Junior, the boy with the mental disability, and his mom. When I swung by their house the other day, Sarah told me they moved. Today, she asked a few others and people in the town said she actually moved again to Dar es Salaam, the capitol of Tanzania located 13 hours away. Part of is initially sad since I really wanted to see Junior & Mama Junior again, I had such powerful moments with them both that really changed me. Then I think about how their family must be taken care of now, Mama Junior probably has more job opportunities and maybe Junior is enrolled in a mentally disabled school. I ask for a phone number and Sarah says they don’t have a cell. Maybe I’ll never see them again for the rest of my life, but I’ll never forget them.
I learned from the other Westerners here doing malaria research that the incidence of malaria has declined significantly, one source said a 75% drop in cases. The government went house-to-house and sprayed pesticides on the inside of houses that kill mosquitoes instantly, the process is called indoor residual spraying. This occurred in March and they apparently did a great job and offered the service to every household. Another student is here evaluating whether or not Village Life Outreach Project needs to continue distributing mosquito nets and the conclusion is no. I’m thrilled that the spraying has drastically cut down on unnecessary deaths and suffering from malaria. I remember all the sad interview conducted last year and hope that the next generation in Shirati can be eradicated of malaria.
I excitedly prep the donated cleats to bring to the second girls soccer practice. Today the girls are practicing in their normal spot, on the airstrip across the street which is basically miles of pastures with grazing cows and acts as a sort of heli-pad for the private planes that come in a blue moon (mostly an NGO called Flying Doctors which fly surgeons into remote areas). I bring Sarah along to translate for me. As we talk about the soccer team, I learn that she actually played soccer in secondary school in Kenya which is very rare. Sarah also went to a championship game playing soccer. I ask her if she would like to be an assistant coach and was thrilled at the connection. She is interested in learning about payments for being a coach, which nearly everyone in Shirati is looking for a job, and I tell her its more of a stipend and does not pay much but is aimed more for the girls. I ask Sarah if she has a friend and she says yes. My hope was really to start training women under the main coaches so that we can eventually have female coaches.
I conduct mini-interviews one-by-one with each of the soccer girls while giving them a chance to pick out shoes. We distributed about 14 out of the 16 pairs of shoes and wrote down a handful of names that still need shoes. During the interview, I photograph each of the girls and video record Sarah asking each girl a few questions about herself (favorite color, favorite school subject, dream job, # siblings, position in soccer & why she plays soccer). Nearly all of the girls answered “to be physically fit” for the latter question haha. The girls were so ecstatic using their new cleats and pennies rather than running around barefoot and pulling a sleeve down as they have been doing for the past year.
At the end of practice, Niko (the coach) wants me to take a photo with his cute toddler daughter. Niko ’s other daughter is actually on the team, which is a pleasant surprise for me. He tells the girls that I’m the mzungu who owns the team – which I quickly correct him and say not at all. Yes Mel and I did buy soccer balls and some equipment but it truly is the persistence of the coaches and the dedication of the girls as well as support from the community that made the team last. I walk back with the girls and they see my blackberry background which sparks showing them pictures of America and then other places I’ve traveled too. They are fascinated by the different pictures and start playing with my hair. I love how its possible to make even small friendships and connections with these sweet young girls even though we don’t understand each other verbally. As I’m writing this blog way past midnight, the skies are pouring. The rains in Africa always sound so beautiful and give the perfect breeze inside. I’m totally enamored with all of the African natural beauty.
I learned from the other Westerners here doing malaria research that the incidence of malaria has declined significantly, one source said a 75% drop in cases. The government went house-to-house and sprayed pesticides on the inside of houses that kill mosquitoes instantly, the process is called indoor residual spraying. This occurred in March and they apparently did a great job and offered the service to every household. Another student is here evaluating whether or not Village Life Outreach Project needs to continue distributing mosquito nets and the conclusion is no. I’m thrilled that the spraying has drastically cut down on unnecessary deaths and suffering from malaria. I remember all the sad interview conducted last year and hope that the next generation in Shirati can be eradicated of malaria.
I excitedly prep the donated cleats to bring to the second girls soccer practice. Today the girls are practicing in their normal spot, on the airstrip across the street which is basically miles of pastures with grazing cows and acts as a sort of heli-pad for the private planes that come in a blue moon (mostly an NGO called Flying Doctors which fly surgeons into remote areas). I bring Sarah along to translate for me. As we talk about the soccer team, I learn that she actually played soccer in secondary school in Kenya which is very rare. Sarah also went to a championship game playing soccer. I ask her if she would like to be an assistant coach and was thrilled at the connection. She is interested in learning about payments for being a coach, which nearly everyone in Shirati is looking for a job, and I tell her its more of a stipend and does not pay much but is aimed more for the girls. I ask Sarah if she has a friend and she says yes. My hope was really to start training women under the main coaches so that we can eventually have female coaches.
I conduct mini-interviews one-by-one with each of the soccer girls while giving them a chance to pick out shoes. We distributed about 14 out of the 16 pairs of shoes and wrote down a handful of names that still need shoes. During the interview, I photograph each of the girls and video record Sarah asking each girl a few questions about herself (favorite color, favorite school subject, dream job, # siblings, position in soccer & why she plays soccer). Nearly all of the girls answered “to be physically fit” for the latter question haha. The girls were so ecstatic using their new cleats and pennies rather than running around barefoot and pulling a sleeve down as they have been doing for the past year.
At the end of practice, Niko (the coach) wants me to take a photo with his cute toddler daughter. Niko ’s other daughter is actually on the team, which is a pleasant surprise for me. He tells the girls that I’m the mzungu who owns the team – which I quickly correct him and say not at all. Yes Mel and I did buy soccer balls and some equipment but it truly is the persistence of the coaches and the dedication of the girls as well as support from the community that made the team last. I walk back with the girls and they see my blackberry background which sparks showing them pictures of America and then other places I’ve traveled too. They are fascinated by the different pictures and start playing with my hair. I love how its possible to make even small friendships and connections with these sweet young girls even though we don’t understand each other verbally. As I’m writing this blog way past midnight, the skies are pouring. The rains in Africa always sound so beautiful and give the perfect breeze inside. I’m totally enamored with all of the African natural beauty.
6/15/11 Playing with the boys
As a last minute person, I still wasn’t entirely sure of my day’s plans when Sarah, my translator, asks me first thing in the morning. I decide to take a piki piki (a 30 cent motorcycle ride) to Obuere, the area with slightly more shops than nearby Kibwana where it is usually bustling with people on Monday. Since today is Wednesday, there are not nearly as many little shacks and umbrella stores, but I do manage to find what I’m looking for. I wanted to scope out how much tennis shoes cost. Sue collected a bunch of used soccer cleats from soccer teams in New Jersey but I want to be able to supplement more for when we run out or if the sizes don’t match up. Tomorrow the next girls practice will be held so I want to be ready. I printed out media release forms translated into Swahili so that all videos and photos that I take of the kids that will be used for fundraising and website purposes with identifiers will have parental permission just like in the U.S. At the market, I also buy a plastic bag full of food and later walk into the subvillage of Yakina to give Teresa some food. Teresa says some things in Luo but since I went alone, I’m not entirely sure what she says but knows she probably called me a friend, lists the food items in the bag (dga-a type of anchovies, avocado, onions, etc).
In the evening, soccer time comes around. I join the other med students on the field. For every normal day, its only boys that play. I decide to push my luck with the gender difference being the only girl not only on the field but in the spectator section too and see if they’ll let me play. I get picked last when the captains choose out people like during my awkward middle school days in gym class. One boy tells me I’m #7. This does not mean I have a jersey with the number imprinted, but rather corresponds to a specific position…since I’m not sure I just kind of play left midfield, a position I am comfortable with. Today the boys play the full field and I try not to outwardly show my out-of-shape, exasperated shape. Surprisingly, the local boys pass the ball to me more so than most American guys I’ve played with (on the field at the time, in intramural soccer in college or for fun in grad school). I wonder how my girly girl old self would view me now; the one that used to play Barbies well into the pre-teen years (as my friend Jill will still make fun of me for) and preferred Pretty Pretty Princess over creepy crawlers. We actually played the match with an RFC soccer ball, one that I haven’t yet distributed to the team. My team does awesome 2-1 for awhile but eventually ends up losing 2-3. While we are playing, a cute little girl stands on the main road watching us and I say hello and ask for her name. I remember seeing lots of girls watching with great curiosity last year before the first team was established and know there are so many more that want to join still, more work to be done. I look at the gorgeous sunset while we play and wonder why I ever bother to leave. Later that night, there is a lunar eclipse and about a million stars in the sky. My meager attempt to use a tripod and DSLR telephoto lens to capture the sky does injustice to the beauty of the moon and the stars in person.
In the evening, soccer time comes around. I join the other med students on the field. For every normal day, its only boys that play. I decide to push my luck with the gender difference being the only girl not only on the field but in the spectator section too and see if they’ll let me play. I get picked last when the captains choose out people like during my awkward middle school days in gym class. One boy tells me I’m #7. This does not mean I have a jersey with the number imprinted, but rather corresponds to a specific position…since I’m not sure I just kind of play left midfield, a position I am comfortable with. Today the boys play the full field and I try not to outwardly show my out-of-shape, exasperated shape. Surprisingly, the local boys pass the ball to me more so than most American guys I’ve played with (on the field at the time, in intramural soccer in college or for fun in grad school). I wonder how my girly girl old self would view me now; the one that used to play Barbies well into the pre-teen years (as my friend Jill will still make fun of me for) and preferred Pretty Pretty Princess over creepy crawlers. We actually played the match with an RFC soccer ball, one that I haven’t yet distributed to the team. My team does awesome 2-1 for awhile but eventually ends up losing 2-3. While we are playing, a cute little girl stands on the main road watching us and I say hello and ask for her name. I remember seeing lots of girls watching with great curiosity last year before the first team was established and know there are so many more that want to join still, more work to be done. I look at the gorgeous sunset while we play and wonder why I ever bother to leave. Later that night, there is a lunar eclipse and about a million stars in the sky. My meager attempt to use a tripod and DSLR telephoto lens to capture the sky does injustice to the beauty of the moon and the stars in person.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
6/14/11 Old Friends New Teams
I wake up to the sound of a million roosters signifying the break of morning. I almost don’t know what to do with this newfound freedom of plans. Last year, my days were pretty regimented with the goal of walking household to household surveying and needing enough to make the research study relevant. With hours of prep and needing a minimum number of participants, researchers are always consumed. I meet my translator, Sarah, who is a Kenyan and moved to Shirati with her husband and baby a few years ago. I miss Pilli and Enock, my two young translators from last year whom Mel and I formed friendships with. I decide that the first thing I want to do is to take a stroll around the Yakina subvillage, an area I find myself remembering where my friends are in unmarked huts than I realize.
I say “hode (hodey)” in Swahili which means “Hello, can I come in?” as I approach the small round clay hut with a straw patched roof and Welcome scribed with white paint in the corrugated metal door that does not ever fully shut. A very skinny old lady hobbles out and is delighted to see me and Sarah. I love her big smile and whatever she says in Luo, the tribal language of the region. Sarah translates that she says welcome back my friend and that she is so happy to see me. Teresa does not know her age, she suspects she is in her nineties. She is a widow and had one child in her life, a son. Her son died four years ago leaving behind a grandson named Babu. Babu’s mother abandoned the family (not entirely sure when), leaving Babu an orphan inherited by Teresa. I stumbled upon Babu last year as a bubbly kindergarten boy at Zappe Kindergarten when a few of us went to play with the kids. I later in the same day went surveying and met Teresa and was surprised to find the kindergarten boy return back home. He changed out of his neatly pressed required school uniform into rags. His single t-shirt and pants had so many gaping holes that his entire buttock region was exposed. Babu said he was hungry and Teresa said she tried to beg around on Monday, the prime market day, but the only thing she received was a tomato. Heartbroken by the experience, Melody and I sought out short and longer term solutions. We immediately went to the market and filled our bag with vegetables, fried fish and nuts and brought them to Teresa and Babu. We discussed plans on sponsoring Babu and it was suggested to us that maybe if Babu lived with a relative, they could provide more stability and keep up with the energetic 5 year old. So with a monthly sponsorship we wire to the SHED foundation, Babu gets to live with his stepmother sharing a bed, regular food and school supplies.
I had not heard much about Babu from SHED after I left Shirati except that he was doing well. Teresa wanted to take us to see Babu. With her cane and persistent tiny steps, we walked about 1/8th of a mile to Cecelia’s house. During the walk, I ask Teresa about her life. She said that she is still hungry and relies on people to generously give her food to sustain herself. She tries to garden but her age prevents her from partaking in rigorous activity. I asked her how many meals does she eat a day and she responded two meals or sometimes none. I then wonder if there was any sort of business she could or would want to do but she replied that she is unable to work and most jobs in the village require being part of the big Monday market and walking far. I also asked if Babu visited her and he did. I wondered if she was lonely and she said yes. For a chunk of the walk, I was left thinking about what Room for Compassion could do for her. Here was a strong old woman that until last year was raising her grandson but left with the unfortunate circumstance of not having a safety net like others her age to have secure food and shelter. I originally liked the idea of having an elderly persons group to foster unity among the population and maybe have purpose by having the group be responsible for something in the micro-society. I’m not sure of how many are in the elderly population and I didn’t factor in the fact that many were handicapped and even walking was a task. Maybe we can sponsor some elderly people that lost their safety net.
We reach Babu’s house and see all the kids gather around. Babu walks in the front door with a red t-shirt and shorts on. He sees me and is shy. Cecelia beckons him to come over and shake my hand, wince at a hug and sit down near me. I am ecstatic to see Babu and he has grown a little bit. He is apparently at Mkoma primary school but still in kindergarten. I suppose he is a little behind since it would be his second time in kindergarten but am not sure how the system works. We converse in the living room. I see Babu’s bed, the one that Mel and I picked up and transported last year to Cecelia’s house two days before leaving Shirati. We then proceed to take photos and I show Babu how to use my point and shoot camera and press the button to capture pictures. Then I introduce the video option and everyone is wildly giggling and fascinated at videos. I teach Babu how to press the shutter to start and stop the video and tell him to walk around and talk. Cecelia and Sarah and coax him to talk about himself and he wanders around his house to the nearby animals with a huge smile on his face. I let him video and replay his cinematography for about a half hour. We all sit back in the living room and I briefly tell everyone about RFC. Cecelia suggests that maybe if I can help her start a business, that she can include and help out Teresa. I tell her I will look more into the idea of her transporting grains to the market but that we currently have no funding for that department.
The next family I am eager to visit is Junior and Mama Junior. Junior is a boy with a mental disability, his mom claims that he contracted meningitis or another disease when he was a toddler that caused his disability. The 10 year old boy truly touched me last year and I felt that inaction about his life, which consisted of being locked up in a prison-like setting was an unbearable thought. It broke my heart to know on the inside that without any help or intervention, Junior would spend the next 10 years of his life in the same fashion. Outcasted by society, he never left his house or go to school. The lack of resources for the disabled is unfortunate. As I approach Junior’s house, Sarah tells me that they are relatives of hers and starts to describe their all-to familiar history where the dad passed away leaving the mom with 3 boys. I notice the house looks different, the fallen down brick wall that used to be filled with thorns as protection was gone. A few brick layers were laid in the missing wall and now there is only half the wall that is bare. Sarah tells me that the family has moved to Shirati’s center of town.
At 4pm, I run excitedly to the soccer field to reunite with all of the girls. When I arrive on time, there are about 15 girls there. The language barrier prevents me from understanding what they are saying to me except that they are referring to me as mzungu every other word. I already see a transformation in the girls. They all started out wearing their long skirts to practice as is customary for women to wear, even during sports to all wearing pants or shorts. Funny enough, a few of them are wearing boxers. They don’t really have a supply of women’s shorts in the community, especially not tiny fitted ones for forth and fifth grade girls. Niko, one of the coaches arrives from his butcher shop job, and is able to speak English to me. He told me that the girls doubted I would come back. He said they started with 51 back when I was last here and a few dropped out without knowing the reason, he said some thought they would never get shoes they were promised while others said their parents felt that their daughter shouldn’t play soccer and should instead do household duties. I tell the girls that I am so happy to see them and that I always said I would return.
Niko brings my familiar red Adidas duffle but with only 2 soccer balls. Out of the 6 soccer balls Melody and I bought (they were not cheap), 4 of them broke and the only two remaining are the Adidas ones we purchased from Nairobi after we left Shirati. Thank goodness we had sent them back with Pili and Enock or else there would be no balls and potentially no girls soccer team. Niko takes attendance, which he has done at every single practice since we left. Today there are 21 girls. We then run onto the field that was once reserved for only secondary school boys. School is out but the girls and boys soccer teams still continue. The secondary school boys have practice but agree to let the girls and coaches use half of the field. Just before this, the secondary school boys were talking to me right before Niko arrived. I told them I was here to watch the girls play soccer and they all laughed. I said the girls had a coach and they played football to which the boys inquired who the coach was and probably didn’t believe me until Niko arrived.
I am so impressed by the team and the two coaches. Niko has a whistle and uses it to run drills. The girls do sprints, squats, jumping jacks, Indian runs etc. They pass the ball back and forth to the coaches. I was so impressed that Niko knew all of the girls’ name which he also pointed out to me. I stood next to Niko and Alex and would join in on the exercises facing the girls in between taking photos and videos. The 21 girls divide into 3 different teams and scrimmage each other. I am even more impressed that the girls have gotten so good at soccer. Less than a year ago, no female in Shirati knew how to kick a soccer ball or refrain from using their hands. Now, a lot of these girls juggled much better than I could as well as confidently kicking, passing and challenging each other. I loved seeing the friendships between teammates as well as the smiles and laughter. Since the scrimmaging teams don’t have uniforms, Niko tells me they remove their shirts. I was at first horrified, but then saw that he meant the team that lost the coin toss had to pull one sleeve down to show their shoulder and mark that they were a team. I run back and grab a soccer ball that I etched an RFC logo into the night before and change into my cleats and shorts so I can join in. I decide to bring the shoes and rest of the gear at another practice so that I can carry and organize distribution to make sure every girl gets shoes. After 2 hours of playing and practicing, I head back to dinner. I was thrilled to see the other mzungus living in the same hostel coming out and watching the boys and mingling with the girls and then a few of the guys joined the boys secondary team. At the end of practice, I have the girls huddle in and say “One, two, three wasichana!” Wasichana means girls. I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that the soccer team Melody and I haphazardly threw together in a matter of days would continue and produce such solidarity and joy in the girls’ and coaches’ faces.
I say “hode (hodey)” in Swahili which means “Hello, can I come in?” as I approach the small round clay hut with a straw patched roof and Welcome scribed with white paint in the corrugated metal door that does not ever fully shut. A very skinny old lady hobbles out and is delighted to see me and Sarah. I love her big smile and whatever she says in Luo, the tribal language of the region. Sarah translates that she says welcome back my friend and that she is so happy to see me. Teresa does not know her age, she suspects she is in her nineties. She is a widow and had one child in her life, a son. Her son died four years ago leaving behind a grandson named Babu. Babu’s mother abandoned the family (not entirely sure when), leaving Babu an orphan inherited by Teresa. I stumbled upon Babu last year as a bubbly kindergarten boy at Zappe Kindergarten when a few of us went to play with the kids. I later in the same day went surveying and met Teresa and was surprised to find the kindergarten boy return back home. He changed out of his neatly pressed required school uniform into rags. His single t-shirt and pants had so many gaping holes that his entire buttock region was exposed. Babu said he was hungry and Teresa said she tried to beg around on Monday, the prime market day, but the only thing she received was a tomato. Heartbroken by the experience, Melody and I sought out short and longer term solutions. We immediately went to the market and filled our bag with vegetables, fried fish and nuts and brought them to Teresa and Babu. We discussed plans on sponsoring Babu and it was suggested to us that maybe if Babu lived with a relative, they could provide more stability and keep up with the energetic 5 year old. So with a monthly sponsorship we wire to the SHED foundation, Babu gets to live with his stepmother sharing a bed, regular food and school supplies.
I had not heard much about Babu from SHED after I left Shirati except that he was doing well. Teresa wanted to take us to see Babu. With her cane and persistent tiny steps, we walked about 1/8th of a mile to Cecelia’s house. During the walk, I ask Teresa about her life. She said that she is still hungry and relies on people to generously give her food to sustain herself. She tries to garden but her age prevents her from partaking in rigorous activity. I asked her how many meals does she eat a day and she responded two meals or sometimes none. I then wonder if there was any sort of business she could or would want to do but she replied that she is unable to work and most jobs in the village require being part of the big Monday market and walking far. I also asked if Babu visited her and he did. I wondered if she was lonely and she said yes. For a chunk of the walk, I was left thinking about what Room for Compassion could do for her. Here was a strong old woman that until last year was raising her grandson but left with the unfortunate circumstance of not having a safety net like others her age to have secure food and shelter. I originally liked the idea of having an elderly persons group to foster unity among the population and maybe have purpose by having the group be responsible for something in the micro-society. I’m not sure of how many are in the elderly population and I didn’t factor in the fact that many were handicapped and even walking was a task. Maybe we can sponsor some elderly people that lost their safety net.
We reach Babu’s house and see all the kids gather around. Babu walks in the front door with a red t-shirt and shorts on. He sees me and is shy. Cecelia beckons him to come over and shake my hand, wince at a hug and sit down near me. I am ecstatic to see Babu and he has grown a little bit. He is apparently at Mkoma primary school but still in kindergarten. I suppose he is a little behind since it would be his second time in kindergarten but am not sure how the system works. We converse in the living room. I see Babu’s bed, the one that Mel and I picked up and transported last year to Cecelia’s house two days before leaving Shirati. We then proceed to take photos and I show Babu how to use my point and shoot camera and press the button to capture pictures. Then I introduce the video option and everyone is wildly giggling and fascinated at videos. I teach Babu how to press the shutter to start and stop the video and tell him to walk around and talk. Cecelia and Sarah and coax him to talk about himself and he wanders around his house to the nearby animals with a huge smile on his face. I let him video and replay his cinematography for about a half hour. We all sit back in the living room and I briefly tell everyone about RFC. Cecelia suggests that maybe if I can help her start a business, that she can include and help out Teresa. I tell her I will look more into the idea of her transporting grains to the market but that we currently have no funding for that department.
The next family I am eager to visit is Junior and Mama Junior. Junior is a boy with a mental disability, his mom claims that he contracted meningitis or another disease when he was a toddler that caused his disability. The 10 year old boy truly touched me last year and I felt that inaction about his life, which consisted of being locked up in a prison-like setting was an unbearable thought. It broke my heart to know on the inside that without any help or intervention, Junior would spend the next 10 years of his life in the same fashion. Outcasted by society, he never left his house or go to school. The lack of resources for the disabled is unfortunate. As I approach Junior’s house, Sarah tells me that they are relatives of hers and starts to describe their all-to familiar history where the dad passed away leaving the mom with 3 boys. I notice the house looks different, the fallen down brick wall that used to be filled with thorns as protection was gone. A few brick layers were laid in the missing wall and now there is only half the wall that is bare. Sarah tells me that the family has moved to Shirati’s center of town.
At 4pm, I run excitedly to the soccer field to reunite with all of the girls. When I arrive on time, there are about 15 girls there. The language barrier prevents me from understanding what they are saying to me except that they are referring to me as mzungu every other word. I already see a transformation in the girls. They all started out wearing their long skirts to practice as is customary for women to wear, even during sports to all wearing pants or shorts. Funny enough, a few of them are wearing boxers. They don’t really have a supply of women’s shorts in the community, especially not tiny fitted ones for forth and fifth grade girls. Niko, one of the coaches arrives from his butcher shop job, and is able to speak English to me. He told me that the girls doubted I would come back. He said they started with 51 back when I was last here and a few dropped out without knowing the reason, he said some thought they would never get shoes they were promised while others said their parents felt that their daughter shouldn’t play soccer and should instead do household duties. I tell the girls that I am so happy to see them and that I always said I would return.
Niko brings my familiar red Adidas duffle but with only 2 soccer balls. Out of the 6 soccer balls Melody and I bought (they were not cheap), 4 of them broke and the only two remaining are the Adidas ones we purchased from Nairobi after we left Shirati. Thank goodness we had sent them back with Pili and Enock or else there would be no balls and potentially no girls soccer team. Niko takes attendance, which he has done at every single practice since we left. Today there are 21 girls. We then run onto the field that was once reserved for only secondary school boys. School is out but the girls and boys soccer teams still continue. The secondary school boys have practice but agree to let the girls and coaches use half of the field. Just before this, the secondary school boys were talking to me right before Niko arrived. I told them I was here to watch the girls play soccer and they all laughed. I said the girls had a coach and they played football to which the boys inquired who the coach was and probably didn’t believe me until Niko arrived.
I am so impressed by the team and the two coaches. Niko has a whistle and uses it to run drills. The girls do sprints, squats, jumping jacks, Indian runs etc. They pass the ball back and forth to the coaches. I was so impressed that Niko knew all of the girls’ name which he also pointed out to me. I stood next to Niko and Alex and would join in on the exercises facing the girls in between taking photos and videos. The 21 girls divide into 3 different teams and scrimmage each other. I am even more impressed that the girls have gotten so good at soccer. Less than a year ago, no female in Shirati knew how to kick a soccer ball or refrain from using their hands. Now, a lot of these girls juggled much better than I could as well as confidently kicking, passing and challenging each other. I loved seeing the friendships between teammates as well as the smiles and laughter. Since the scrimmaging teams don’t have uniforms, Niko tells me they remove their shirts. I was at first horrified, but then saw that he meant the team that lost the coin toss had to pull one sleeve down to show their shoulder and mark that they were a team. I run back and grab a soccer ball that I etched an RFC logo into the night before and change into my cleats and shorts so I can join in. I decide to bring the shoes and rest of the gear at another practice so that I can carry and organize distribution to make sure every girl gets shoes. After 2 hours of playing and practicing, I head back to dinner. I was thrilled to see the other mzungus living in the same hostel coming out and watching the boys and mingling with the girls and then a few of the guys joined the boys secondary team. At the end of practice, I have the girls huddle in and say “One, two, three wasichana!” Wasichana means girls. I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that the soccer team Melody and I haphazardly threw together in a matter of days would continue and produce such solidarity and joy in the girls’ and coaches’ faces.
Homecoming to Shirati, Tanzania
For the past 11 months or so, I have been dreaming of the moment where I return to the place that not only stole my heart but forever changed me. If last summer had a song on infinite replay it would have been “Karma Police”, particularly the line that goes “For a minute there I lost myself, I lost myself..” to describe how I almost didn’t follow my true calling in life to instead pursue a career of financial stability and ultimately a meaningless path. I laugh at myself about how nervous I was departing the US to Tanzania. Another year wiser, I now know better than to believe all the horror stories told to me, particularly of those that have never even visited the places I went.
The bus ride from Nairobi was great. Fred, a local and friend from last summer, did end up at the Mennonite Guest House when I landed and we left at 7am. The bus interior was quite nice. A coach bus with disco red velvet lined seats, floors and ceiling. The overhead even reminded me of a plane. There was a light and switchable air ventilator. There was even a TV on the bus playing music videos of first Bongo flavor (a Kenyan/Tanzanian favorite mimicking a cool Caribbean mix) and popular American hip hop. Right after Rihanna’s music video played, Chris Brown’s ironically played. It was the same song that I had watched him perform live about 2 months ago on a taping of Dancing with the Stars just 2 days after he angrily threw a chair at the mention of his past abuse towards Rihanna. The only thing missing from the nice bus was a bathroom. There was 1 bathroom stop which women and men scurried to bushes to relieve themselves and quickly hurried back to the bus that would certainly leave without them. During the 9.5 hours of traveling, I make zero stops to the bathroom. After countless 5 hour road trips to NorCal and driving across the country, I learned to train my bladder as if one would train a puppy not to poop at the wrong place or time. Basically, I drink little to no water until I know I’m about 2 hours away. It works everytime.
Halfway through the bus ride, a man enters our bus and begins preaching or maybe talking in Swahili. He does this for about an hour or two. A similar tactic is used in Haiti where a man stays on the public bus all day long and talks and talks and talks and then sells whatever he is selling. The first Kenyan man to do this on the bus, I don’t mind. His voice is easily overpowered by the music from my headphones. The second guy to talk/preach sounded like Freddy Cougar with strep throat. I might have preferred nails on a chalkboard to his horrific raspy tone that not even the loudest music setting can drown out.
I look up at the scenery between falling in and out of sleep and reading “Eat, Pray, Love” and salivating over the Italian food depicted in the novel. My heart is lightened by the baby blue sky sprinkled with cirrus clouds and the dark red soil below. I get giddy at the sight of a Masai man walking down a corn field with his back towards the bus and his beautiful cape flowing in the wind. I wonder how my life would have been had I been one of the little kids playing outside of their mud hut home oblivious to the Western world. Our bus passes by a huge market with at least 10 rows of umbrella food stands that are manned by women. We also pass by a small truck that must have taken a sharp turn and completely flipped on its driver side. I wonder if the driver was still alive and the cause of the accident. Last year, on our way to Shirati, the driver nearly misses a small child that hastily decided to run across the street as a speeding van was approaching and misjudged the speed/distance calculation that comes with experience.
Nine hours on bus pass by. I anxiously wait at the visa booth in the Tanzanian border patrol station wondering if they will harass me like last year about how I was actually a volunteer and not a tourist vacationer which would require a more expensive work visa. I get my passport stamped back. The one patrol police says something to Fred in Swahili while looking at me. I think he wants me to stay in Tanzania longer. I slip out of the station to the taxi awaiting Fred and I and exclaim with excitement that I was not charged the $100 visa fee! I almost wanted to say something inside but did not just to see how far I could go before they realized their mistake. I guess I kind of stole, and stealing is wrong, but I am very broke and probably (definitely) shouldn’t even be spending money to sojourn out to Shirati but this is probably my last chance for at least a long while.
Even though nearly 10 hours have passed while in transit to our final destination, I am still surprised at how fast we are approaching Shirati. We drive in the taxi on dirt roads for an hour on Utegi Road until more and more familiar landmarks pass by. Its Monday market, I forgot that the awesome overcrowded market where people from all distances would come to buy produce for the week occurred today. I imagine how a café would do in the Obuere area which is where the market and several wooden shack stores reside. I saw a tea café with small tables for two and a rustic sign saying tea café on the ride from Kenya…I thought of it as the Starbucks of whatever dinky town we were passing by. Maybe a laid back and luxury expenditure would fit well in the area, afterall, everything runs on Africa time. I also tell Fred my other business idea for the Shirati area, an ATM machine. There are tons of mzungus (white people) that volunteer in Shirati every summer and are in constant need of cash and the nearest ATM is 2 hours away with a maximum withdrawal of about $260 per day.
At long last, the sedan taxi pulls over in front of Dr. Esther Kawira’s house. She is the American doctor that fell in love with a Tanzanian man in Indiana and after much debate on her husband’s side, they got married and raised 4 kids in Shirati. I greet her husband, Josiah and gave him a big hug and the remark I continued to give everyone else that I saw, “I told you I’d come back!” We go to the SHED hostel where I spent my time living in Shirati last summer. A local woman runs and shrieks when she sees my face and embraces me to the point of almost lifting me from the ground. Its Cecelia! She is now apparently nicknamed MamaBabu after she took in Babu, the kindergartender being sponsored by Room for Compassion. I ask how Babu is and how Teresa Aneti (Babu’s very old grandmother) are doing and she says they are both good. To my surprise, there are other mzungus at the hostel. I get a room with four beds all to myself. I later find out that it’s the bat room…5 bats were killed last week. I make my way around to meet other public health professionals, medical students and a ton of undergraduate U of Cincinnati students. Most are here working with Village Life Outreach Project, another fantastic organization that does many things including successfully building a health center in a remote region and apparently plans are underway for a new school. I walk with a few girls to the center of Kabwana, the mini town center of Shirati. I stop in my tracks at the sight of the humungous red sun setting and realized how much I missed it. We stay an hour drinking soda out of glass bottles and talking to secondary school soccer boys and walk back. I stare up at the cosmos and see how different the stars look in the Southern hemisphere. The familiarity of the village makes me feel like this is home and I’m finally back.
The bus ride from Nairobi was great. Fred, a local and friend from last summer, did end up at the Mennonite Guest House when I landed and we left at 7am. The bus interior was quite nice. A coach bus with disco red velvet lined seats, floors and ceiling. The overhead even reminded me of a plane. There was a light and switchable air ventilator. There was even a TV on the bus playing music videos of first Bongo flavor (a Kenyan/Tanzanian favorite mimicking a cool Caribbean mix) and popular American hip hop. Right after Rihanna’s music video played, Chris Brown’s ironically played. It was the same song that I had watched him perform live about 2 months ago on a taping of Dancing with the Stars just 2 days after he angrily threw a chair at the mention of his past abuse towards Rihanna. The only thing missing from the nice bus was a bathroom. There was 1 bathroom stop which women and men scurried to bushes to relieve themselves and quickly hurried back to the bus that would certainly leave without them. During the 9.5 hours of traveling, I make zero stops to the bathroom. After countless 5 hour road trips to NorCal and driving across the country, I learned to train my bladder as if one would train a puppy not to poop at the wrong place or time. Basically, I drink little to no water until I know I’m about 2 hours away. It works everytime.
Halfway through the bus ride, a man enters our bus and begins preaching or maybe talking in Swahili. He does this for about an hour or two. A similar tactic is used in Haiti where a man stays on the public bus all day long and talks and talks and talks and then sells whatever he is selling. The first Kenyan man to do this on the bus, I don’t mind. His voice is easily overpowered by the music from my headphones. The second guy to talk/preach sounded like Freddy Cougar with strep throat. I might have preferred nails on a chalkboard to his horrific raspy tone that not even the loudest music setting can drown out.
I look up at the scenery between falling in and out of sleep and reading “Eat, Pray, Love” and salivating over the Italian food depicted in the novel. My heart is lightened by the baby blue sky sprinkled with cirrus clouds and the dark red soil below. I get giddy at the sight of a Masai man walking down a corn field with his back towards the bus and his beautiful cape flowing in the wind. I wonder how my life would have been had I been one of the little kids playing outside of their mud hut home oblivious to the Western world. Our bus passes by a huge market with at least 10 rows of umbrella food stands that are manned by women. We also pass by a small truck that must have taken a sharp turn and completely flipped on its driver side. I wonder if the driver was still alive and the cause of the accident. Last year, on our way to Shirati, the driver nearly misses a small child that hastily decided to run across the street as a speeding van was approaching and misjudged the speed/distance calculation that comes with experience.
Nine hours on bus pass by. I anxiously wait at the visa booth in the Tanzanian border patrol station wondering if they will harass me like last year about how I was actually a volunteer and not a tourist vacationer which would require a more expensive work visa. I get my passport stamped back. The one patrol police says something to Fred in Swahili while looking at me. I think he wants me to stay in Tanzania longer. I slip out of the station to the taxi awaiting Fred and I and exclaim with excitement that I was not charged the $100 visa fee! I almost wanted to say something inside but did not just to see how far I could go before they realized their mistake. I guess I kind of stole, and stealing is wrong, but I am very broke and probably (definitely) shouldn’t even be spending money to sojourn out to Shirati but this is probably my last chance for at least a long while.
Even though nearly 10 hours have passed while in transit to our final destination, I am still surprised at how fast we are approaching Shirati. We drive in the taxi on dirt roads for an hour on Utegi Road until more and more familiar landmarks pass by. Its Monday market, I forgot that the awesome overcrowded market where people from all distances would come to buy produce for the week occurred today. I imagine how a café would do in the Obuere area which is where the market and several wooden shack stores reside. I saw a tea café with small tables for two and a rustic sign saying tea café on the ride from Kenya…I thought of it as the Starbucks of whatever dinky town we were passing by. Maybe a laid back and luxury expenditure would fit well in the area, afterall, everything runs on Africa time. I also tell Fred my other business idea for the Shirati area, an ATM machine. There are tons of mzungus (white people) that volunteer in Shirati every summer and are in constant need of cash and the nearest ATM is 2 hours away with a maximum withdrawal of about $260 per day.
At long last, the sedan taxi pulls over in front of Dr. Esther Kawira’s house. She is the American doctor that fell in love with a Tanzanian man in Indiana and after much debate on her husband’s side, they got married and raised 4 kids in Shirati. I greet her husband, Josiah and gave him a big hug and the remark I continued to give everyone else that I saw, “I told you I’d come back!” We go to the SHED hostel where I spent my time living in Shirati last summer. A local woman runs and shrieks when she sees my face and embraces me to the point of almost lifting me from the ground. Its Cecelia! She is now apparently nicknamed MamaBabu after she took in Babu, the kindergartender being sponsored by Room for Compassion. I ask how Babu is and how Teresa Aneti (Babu’s very old grandmother) are doing and she says they are both good. To my surprise, there are other mzungus at the hostel. I get a room with four beds all to myself. I later find out that it’s the bat room…5 bats were killed last week. I make my way around to meet other public health professionals, medical students and a ton of undergraduate U of Cincinnati students. Most are here working with Village Life Outreach Project, another fantastic organization that does many things including successfully building a health center in a remote region and apparently plans are underway for a new school. I walk with a few girls to the center of Kabwana, the mini town center of Shirati. I stop in my tracks at the sight of the humungous red sun setting and realized how much I missed it. We stay an hour drinking soda out of glass bottles and talking to secondary school soccer boys and walk back. I stare up at the cosmos and see how different the stars look in the Southern hemisphere. The familiarity of the village makes me feel like this is home and I’m finally back.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
6/12/11 Going Solo
As I sit here on the plane somewhere thousands of feet in the air in between DRC and Kenya, I attempt to unwind and sip chai tea. Departing from Kinshasa airport was a taxing experience and I thought I had my share of airport fun. Nine security checkpoints, one member of my van deciding to take a photo of the airport and then caught by the police for his illegal act but later having the camera returned, delaying of my flight twice and bribing the ticket counter lady with American candy to lower my excess bag fee (ok not really, I had to get rid of 9 kilos so the candy weighed 1kg but she did take off 4 kg). I realize that I have some certainty about where I am headed. I pat myself in the back for reserving the room for tonight far enough in advance to get a shared room at the Mennonite Guest House, where I stayed in Nairobi for some of the time last year though my flight delay might leave me without the prearranged taxi from the airport. I’m kind of wishing I was that diligent about planning how to get to Shirati. Last year I paid a small chunk for the private van that took us all to Shirati and then a large chunk for the private car that took Melody and I back. This time, running on no budget, private car is out of the question. I have to face the local bus. The one that will take 10+ hours, have only Swahili speakers, breaks down quite consistently, keep on constant guard of my stuff (which is a small mountain) and don’t accept food from strangers (like one unfortunate American who was drugged and had his stuff stolen). I sort of arranged for an escort from Shirati to help me from Nairobi but realized I never received a confirmation for tomorrow…so either all is set and well and I’m on a limb.
Besides the logistics of how to return to Shirati, I know that I have needed to. Since I was 7 years old, I’ve longed with a deep desire to traverse continents to Africa and perform some sort of meaningful service work. I finally realized that dream last year with a research grant from USC to carry out a small self-designed study with Melody. I fell in love with it all, the research, walking house-to-house, the warm, friendly locals, the bottled sodas, and beauty of African nature. Mel and I haphazardly started a few programs days before leaving without much foresight into how we would sustain them. These included sponsoring an orphaned kingergartener with school assistance, shelter and food, starting the first girls soccer league in the area and malaria prevention education. Somehow these programs continued in our absence through wire transfers, e-mails and Skype calls every few months. It has been a little shy of 1 year since I nervously left LA to immerse myself for 7 weeks in the most poverty-stricken area I have seen yet. Towards the end, I did not want to leave and made a promise to come back. Originally, I imagined this fun trip where Mel and I with a few of our friends and boyfriends would return and work on building our programs together. Life happens and no one else was able to go so I shrugged and prepped for a solo trip. It can’t be that bad right? I travel alone all the time and meet up with others. The bus does intimidate me quite honestly. I know after this experience of spending the next 3 weeks alone (mostly) will only help me grow. I admit I will miss having that moral support when making ethical decisions or experiencing the most amazing moments with Melody like seeing the girls soccer team for the first time or reuniting with Babu.
Besides the logistics of how to return to Shirati, I know that I have needed to. Since I was 7 years old, I’ve longed with a deep desire to traverse continents to Africa and perform some sort of meaningful service work. I finally realized that dream last year with a research grant from USC to carry out a small self-designed study with Melody. I fell in love with it all, the research, walking house-to-house, the warm, friendly locals, the bottled sodas, and beauty of African nature. Mel and I haphazardly started a few programs days before leaving without much foresight into how we would sustain them. These included sponsoring an orphaned kingergartener with school assistance, shelter and food, starting the first girls soccer league in the area and malaria prevention education. Somehow these programs continued in our absence through wire transfers, e-mails and Skype calls every few months. It has been a little shy of 1 year since I nervously left LA to immerse myself for 7 weeks in the most poverty-stricken area I have seen yet. Towards the end, I did not want to leave and made a promise to come back. Originally, I imagined this fun trip where Mel and I with a few of our friends and boyfriends would return and work on building our programs together. Life happens and no one else was able to go so I shrugged and prepped for a solo trip. It can’t be that bad right? I travel alone all the time and meet up with others. The bus does intimidate me quite honestly. I know after this experience of spending the next 3 weeks alone (mostly) will only help me grow. I admit I will miss having that moral support when making ethical decisions or experiencing the most amazing moments with Melody like seeing the girls soccer team for the first time or reuniting with Babu.
6/10/11 Rich of the rich, poor of the poor
Operation Smile is a non-profit and therefore relies heavily on private donors and corporate sponsors to make these surgical missions possible. In Kinshasa, there were plentiful sponsors of dinners. These generous sponsors would host a dinner feeding all 150 of us. During our first dinner, I was taken aback by the opulence and grandeur restaurants with the nicest food and environment. I felt more like I was in an expensive LA joint rather than in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country infamous for poverty, sexual violence and war. Another night, a dinner was hosted at a golf resort with a 5 star hotel interior and also at a fancy outdoor Tahiti themed Indian restaurant and a third dinner at a French Club with table settings and room making me mistake our dinner for a wedding reception.
The income gap is so striking. I am surprised at how expensive things are in Kinshasa, in many of the wealthier places, food costs more than what I would pay in LA. The cost of living is tremendously high. My research team and I would spend our days collecting now from the non cleft affected control population meaning we would give the same survey to moms and babies without cleft lip and palate so that we can later compared what difference is it between those with clefts and those without clefts that may contribute to cleft development. We went to Kinshasa General Hospital where there were about 12-20 new mothers and their babies in a dingy dirt-layered room with eroded window screen coverings and lack of fan or air conditioning. It was great to see how different this hospital was compared to Clinique Ngliama, the nicer middle-class and wealthy public hospital where our mission was held. Even our translators described Kinshasa General as “dirty” when we curiously asked us about where we were going next. In between surveying and collecting spit, we same about a dozen dead bodies being carried right before us. The harrowing wails from probable mothers, wives and relatives filled my stomach with empathy and my heart with sorrow.
I was horrified when I learned from my translators why there were some women in the newborn maternity wards with 6 week or 3 month old babies. If a mother gives birth at Kinshasa General and is unable to settle the daily bill of about $30 USD per night, she is kept there with her baby until she can pay. In the meantime, the bill continues to accumulate, trapping her in more and more debt. Our one translator said that they prevent the women from leaving the area for fear that they will abandon their baby and not pay the bill. The debtor’s prison set-up is incredibly shocking. I still wonder what eventually happens to the women who are completely unable to pay. Someone told me that once in awhile a wealthy person will bail them out but I doubt that happens all that often.
Another hospital where we collect controls from is Roi Baudoin (impossible for me to pronounce in French). The drive to this hospital takes us to the heart of the slums of Kinshasa which fairly remind me of a mix of the African clothes and carrying of materials on heads in Tanzania mixed with the hustle and bustle of the markets in Port-au-Prince. We drive momentarily on a large dirt road passing by a makeshift lumber area, goat selling shack and multiple micro-economies under umbrellas before entering the hospital. Pleasantly, the hospital is brand new, much cleaners than Kinshasa General and services the poor. The downside is that the women have to sleep with their newborn babies and another woman and her newborn baby on a tiny twin bed cramped with about 20 other mom/baby pairs in a stuffy hot room. We were able to recruit many more survey participants at this hospital since the numbers were larger, the hospital services were less expensive and more moms wanted to participate.
After the team and I spend the day seeing people with degrading health conditions, newborns stuffed like sausages in rooms and passing by the slums, we return to our $300/night hotel and straight to the fancy dinners that I would not be able to afford otherwise. Most of us remark on the team about the sort of culture shock that happens in the span of a few hours and how if we were not researching the general population, we would pretty much only see the hotel and Clinique Ngliama. You can’t help but think about how the rich are probably getting richer and benefitting at the expense of the poor. Without anti-trust regulations that prevent monopolies of markets, Kinshasa is a hotbed for opportunistic foreigners to launch their businesses. So the few elite live amongst a corrupt government, pollution on the streets, occasional political instability and constant demands from police for money while they are stopped in traffic, all to be able to continue their booming businesses and live a life of extreme luxury.
The income gap is so striking. I am surprised at how expensive things are in Kinshasa, in many of the wealthier places, food costs more than what I would pay in LA. The cost of living is tremendously high. My research team and I would spend our days collecting now from the non cleft affected control population meaning we would give the same survey to moms and babies without cleft lip and palate so that we can later compared what difference is it between those with clefts and those without clefts that may contribute to cleft development. We went to Kinshasa General Hospital where there were about 12-20 new mothers and their babies in a dingy dirt-layered room with eroded window screen coverings and lack of fan or air conditioning. It was great to see how different this hospital was compared to Clinique Ngliama, the nicer middle-class and wealthy public hospital where our mission was held. Even our translators described Kinshasa General as “dirty” when we curiously asked us about where we were going next. In between surveying and collecting spit, we same about a dozen dead bodies being carried right before us. The harrowing wails from probable mothers, wives and relatives filled my stomach with empathy and my heart with sorrow.
I was horrified when I learned from my translators why there were some women in the newborn maternity wards with 6 week or 3 month old babies. If a mother gives birth at Kinshasa General and is unable to settle the daily bill of about $30 USD per night, she is kept there with her baby until she can pay. In the meantime, the bill continues to accumulate, trapping her in more and more debt. Our one translator said that they prevent the women from leaving the area for fear that they will abandon their baby and not pay the bill. The debtor’s prison set-up is incredibly shocking. I still wonder what eventually happens to the women who are completely unable to pay. Someone told me that once in awhile a wealthy person will bail them out but I doubt that happens all that often.
Another hospital where we collect controls from is Roi Baudoin (impossible for me to pronounce in French). The drive to this hospital takes us to the heart of the slums of Kinshasa which fairly remind me of a mix of the African clothes and carrying of materials on heads in Tanzania mixed with the hustle and bustle of the markets in Port-au-Prince. We drive momentarily on a large dirt road passing by a makeshift lumber area, goat selling shack and multiple micro-economies under umbrellas before entering the hospital. Pleasantly, the hospital is brand new, much cleaners than Kinshasa General and services the poor. The downside is that the women have to sleep with their newborn babies and another woman and her newborn baby on a tiny twin bed cramped with about 20 other mom/baby pairs in a stuffy hot room. We were able to recruit many more survey participants at this hospital since the numbers were larger, the hospital services were less expensive and more moms wanted to participate.
After the team and I spend the day seeing people with degrading health conditions, newborns stuffed like sausages in rooms and passing by the slums, we return to our $300/night hotel and straight to the fancy dinners that I would not be able to afford otherwise. Most of us remark on the team about the sort of culture shock that happens in the span of a few hours and how if we were not researching the general population, we would pretty much only see the hotel and Clinique Ngliama. You can’t help but think about how the rich are probably getting richer and benefitting at the expense of the poor. Without anti-trust regulations that prevent monopolies of markets, Kinshasa is a hotbed for opportunistic foreigners to launch their businesses. So the few elite live amongst a corrupt government, pollution on the streets, occasional political instability and constant demands from police for money while they are stopped in traffic, all to be able to continue their booming businesses and live a life of extreme luxury.
Welcome to the Congo
The hour drive from the airport to the hotel looked much like some of the other countries I've visited. There are cell phone ads everywhere, dirt roads lined with women selling fruits under umbrellas, shanty shack shops and vehicles sputting out pollution driving around. I wanted to take pictures, but not the first day since picture taking is illegal in Kinshasa (consequence is confiscation of camera or deleting photo and paying a fine). After arriving at our hotel, I immediately meet up with my fellow research staff of Operation Smile and prep for our research project. We are collecting genetic samples via saliva and administering questionnaires to see different genetic links and environmental exposures that may lead to cleft lip and palate. We collect saliva samples from mom, baby and dad if he is present and administer the survey to moms and dads. Cleft lip and palate occurs during a woman’s first trimester in pregnancy (first 3 months). We are hoping to collect about 75-100 families with cleft lip and palate and compare it to about 250 families that have babies without cleft lip and palate. Our plan is to survey for 2 days during the Operation Smile screening of potential candidates for surgery and then survey in the community for the next 5 days for unaffected families. At the end, we do not quite reach our original goal but realized the unrealistic expectation we set for ourselves and collect the most that we can. Our skilled translators are doctors and medical students that speak English, French and the local dialect called Lingala. As always, I am impressed by the linguistic knowledge of other countries as compared to my own where most only know English and are at times intolerant to the thought of learning another language must less mastering it to fluency.
I love being with the mission for the screening days. You meet so many families and people who have suffered with cleft lip and palate. Some new mothers have shame for delivering a baby with the birth defect while other people live into their late adulthood and a lifetime of ridicule with their deformity. Families traverse considerable distances for even the chance to be screened. Not all of our patients have cleft lip and palate, those with severe burns, keloids (huge bulging scar tissue), microtias (missing an ear) and other craniofacial anomalies also arrive. Operation Smile allows everyone to go through the screening process despite their unlikelihood of being a surgical candidate. I am always impressed at how organized and smoothly the missions run. A team of about 150 people where each person has a specific and important role, including high school students that perform health education, cohesively screen and prep patients for surgery in the span of about 7 days. Operation Smile relies heavily on locals to volunteer as translators, provide the team with sponsored dinners and lend a huge hand in planning logistics. The number rule on our missions is to be flexible. Anything can happen and usually something does like missing cargo and medical supplies, shortages on drugs, travel delays or in our mission, absence of the last banquet dinner that is typically formal filled with a celebration and thank you to our volunteers since our sponsor mixed up the date of the banquet.
The research component that I am a part of did not spend a ton of time with the rest of the mission especially during surgical days since we had to venture out to the local community for our control recruitment. Our research piece is a newer branch with the vision from co-director and founder Kathy Magee that we want to find the root of the cause of cleft lip and palate instead of just always providing surgeries. My position is currently a part-time consultant titled “Research Coordinator”. My main role will evolve heavily when I return from Africa in July to manage this research project called the International Family Study, targeted to find the genetic and epidemiological links of cleft lip and palate development in multiple developing countries around the world. Our pilot is in Kinshasa, DRC but we also have collected from Vietnam and Peru in the past.
I love being with the mission for the screening days. You meet so many families and people who have suffered with cleft lip and palate. Some new mothers have shame for delivering a baby with the birth defect while other people live into their late adulthood and a lifetime of ridicule with their deformity. Families traverse considerable distances for even the chance to be screened. Not all of our patients have cleft lip and palate, those with severe burns, keloids (huge bulging scar tissue), microtias (missing an ear) and other craniofacial anomalies also arrive. Operation Smile allows everyone to go through the screening process despite their unlikelihood of being a surgical candidate. I am always impressed at how organized and smoothly the missions run. A team of about 150 people where each person has a specific and important role, including high school students that perform health education, cohesively screen and prep patients for surgery in the span of about 7 days. Operation Smile relies heavily on locals to volunteer as translators, provide the team with sponsored dinners and lend a huge hand in planning logistics. The number rule on our missions is to be flexible. Anything can happen and usually something does like missing cargo and medical supplies, shortages on drugs, travel delays or in our mission, absence of the last banquet dinner that is typically formal filled with a celebration and thank you to our volunteers since our sponsor mixed up the date of the banquet.
The research component that I am a part of did not spend a ton of time with the rest of the mission especially during surgical days since we had to venture out to the local community for our control recruitment. Our research piece is a newer branch with the vision from co-director and founder Kathy Magee that we want to find the root of the cause of cleft lip and palate instead of just always providing surgeries. My position is currently a part-time consultant titled “Research Coordinator”. My main role will evolve heavily when I return from Africa in July to manage this research project called the International Family Study, targeted to find the genetic and epidemiological links of cleft lip and palate development in multiple developing countries around the world. Our pilot is in Kinshasa, DRC but we also have collected from Vietnam and Peru in the past.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)