Train to Kigoma

On a beautiful day in Tanzania I took my first train trip – 14 hour ride (not including the 8 hour wait for the train to get going) to Kigoma.

Aside from the annoying vendors and train-surfing bandits trying to break into our room all night, it was pretty easy going. Nearly every hour the train stopped along the route where women and children ran out to meet us to sell us cooked and raw goods. The prices were cheap and there was no time to haggle. You just lean out the window, point, ask how much and take it. 6 bananas for 100 Tanzanian shillings or 6 cents. Now that’s service!

Train to Chimps (leaves anytime now, really…)

9am

Yay! Siwan and I are finally able to leave Tabora for a weekend, to travel through wild Africa, to experience train travel for the first time in my life, to explore the far reaches of Western Tanzania and the famous chimpanzee park on Lake Tangankia, Gombe. There’s only one little problem, the train’s not moving.

We arrived at 6:45am for the 7am train. The train arrived in the station at 9am. And then we waited, and waited, and waited some more. We ate, drank, and had friends visit while we sat in the train station in Tabora for another six hours until the fuel arrived to make the train run. Ahhh Africa.

10am – Siwan reads a British newspaper

11am - Admiring the same view from the stationary train

12pm – The Sekasua’s son (the people who run HAPO) visits us on the train that’s still not moving.

1pm – I track down the train cook and asked for some chakula (food), any chakula. We got rice and veggies that were actually not too shabby.

2pm – Taking a pumzika (rest) in the hot still-not-moving train. No that’s not rain on the bottom window it is actually shattered glass. The top window was completely blown out and replaced with a piece of cardboard, great for sunset views over Tanzania.

3pm – Kili Time!

3:30pm – Train leaves the Tabora Station, finally.

A Prince of a Frog

This is William, or Prince William if you believe in kissing frogs. We named him because creepy crawlies with names become pets, hence less creepy. I discovered our slimy friend the other morning as I went to take a shower; something small sprung from the cement floor. I let out a minor yelp of surprise, left the room promptly and informed Siwan. She did nothing. Suffice it to say, we didn’t shower that day. 

Thankfully the new volunteers are a bit more brave than us city girls, New York and London respectively. So after 24 hours cohabiting with our reluctant reptile pet, Faye set him free. We were like proud parents as he hopped across the porch and frolicked in the compound garden. Kwaheri William!

William eyes the drain.

 

William goes for a swim.

Cha-Ching!

Along with setting up internet access for the office and a HAPO website (and this blog), I’ve also been helping out a hospital upgrade from a hard copy accounting system to an electronic cash register.

Have I ever worked on a cash register (excluding McDonald’s)? No. Do I know anything about how to program a cash register? No. But that’s the beauty of Tanzania. If you have the knowledge or think you might, you’re instantly the best person for the job.

Dr. Ruth was pulling her hair out every night trying to figure out why the numbers in her hospital didn’t match up. So to help her keep her mzungu locks  from going gray I offered to give it a try to make sense from the manual that thus far, no one had been able to crack. And you can forget about customer service numbers or set up tutorials in the manual. But I figured if I could make sense of Ikea manuals and format computers for broadband in Tanzania then surely I could make sense of this machine. Ruth asked daily how it was going, gulp.

Over the next week I got pretty good at making the machine beep and spit out gobs of paper. But lo and behold, it now works!! Ruth is thrilled but still a bit mystified by the machine so I’ll be training her staff at St. Phillip’s Clinic on how to manage the cash register for medicine and medical services.  

Gifts for HAPO

At the end of our weekly staff meeting, newcomer Christine presented a duffel bag of gifts for the children: activity book, markers, crayons, children’s books, feathers, glue, glitter, paints and more. It was truly awesome to see how appreciative they all were for these gifts.

If you’d like to help out, please click on the Donate button above or send crafts or clothes to:

HAPO
P.O. Box 886
Tabora, Tanzania
EAST AFRICA

New Volunteers Arrived

Faye (Brit) and Christine (American) both arrived safely from the KIU week long language training in Dar Es Salaam. Here I am showing them the ropes by grabbing a child and grinning for the camera. WELCOME FAYE AND CHRISTINE!

St. David’s Day in Tanzania

Infusing a bit of culture in our HAPO kids, Siwan lead the children in a craft to celebrate Wales Day or St. David’s Day by making tissue paper daffodils. Perhaps someone can provide more info about what this day is about and what the flower represents…?

Here are some more fun photos from this nifty craft club.

Mama Sekasua, teacher

Selecting Phase II OVCs

This a portion of the guardians of 150 children in the Kiloleni Ward (district of Tabora) who have been identified as needy by the Ward Officers. It is then the job of the HAPO staff to evaluate each family, their children, and their living conditions to determine who is most needy – and select 27 children for Phase II.

After a brief introduction, we were escorted on foot to the homes of these women where we met their children and completed a questionnaire designed by both international and local officials in medicine and sustainable development. The form was created to assess the biological, psychological, and social state of affairs for both the children and their guardian.  This includes: how often do they eat (most eat a small meal around 10pm at night), do they attend school, is there someone in their family that can lend a hand financially or otherwise?

Once we have a number assigned to each criteria (0 – best, 5 – worst) we can determine how many children from each family we can take. It’s heart-wrenching to turn anyone away, especially after you see firsthand how these people live. But it’s better to be able to help 27 children than none at all. Please help us find the funds for these children by clicking on the donate button at the top of the page.

A few more photos from the day…

Bernadetta (teacher), me (volunteer), Mr. Ndaki (board member of HAPO), Siwan (volunteer)

Here we are sitting in a courtyard with one of the guardians. Technically, she doesn’t live here. She doesn’t live anywhere since her mud house crumbled in on itself in one of the latest big rain storms. Now she’s working babysitting kids for the families close to her former home while she tries to make enough money to get back on her feet.

Me and one of the guardians

Love Letter

I know I shouldn’t do this. It’s not very nice. He’s a very nice man, I’m sure. But oh, poor Siwan (or C1 as he seems to think her name is spelled). What is she going to do with this unsolicited love interest…

Nilisoma Kiswahili

Believe it or not, the kids were gripped by my reading – in Kiswahili. I don’t have much of a clue what I was reading but that’s besides the point, right?

Happy Birthday David

David donned his most festive shirt and gathered 20 of his closest friends for a big brunch at the Tabora Hotel (still the nicest place in town) to celebrate his big 70th birthday. He works for the diocese here but has been living in the East Africa region for over 20 years in Kenya and Uganda. While he accepts some limitations in his hearing and sense of adventure in taking a pikipiki dali dali (riding on the back of motorbike taxi), he announced at his party that he’ll be climbing Mt. Kenya this year. Mt. Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa, after Mt. Kilimanjaro. Good luck David!

Six Nations Represent

It doesn’t get any better than this, or so say all the expats minus one American (the one holding the camera).  After a wicked African thunderstorm that kept us at the Tabora hotel bar from late afternoon into the evening, Siwan spotted a giant screen TV showing nothing less than her beloved boys in tight shorts running around a field doing something or other with a ball.

She tried to explain but I was more interested in chatting with my new friends. One South African is saving the world by helping catch illegal poachers in Tanzania national parks. One Brit is saving souls by building a new church using materials shipped all the way from England. And one Zimbabwean is in the business of killing people slowly through tobacco.

You don’t see many tourists in these parts which means that those who do congregate at the nicest restaurant in town are here to work or volunteer for a local NGO or non-profit organization. NGO’s are considered wealthy and considering that many of these organizations have a habit of just giving hand-outs it’s no wonder that the reputation of the white person as a ‘cash cow’ (term used by locals) precedes us.

On the flip side those who work here are often in tobacco and originate from Zimbabwe. They don’t give money and hold a grudge against the NGO influence. And I’m quite certain that the NGO’s don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling thinking about how the tobacco managers fly small-crop planes to visit their tobacco farms rather than flying in vaccines or mosquito nets to the remote villages like Dr. Ruth does only by bike taking days to get in and out of the villages. However, none of the differences matter much when you’re a minority in the same boat, or bar in this case.

Perhaps you, dear reader, have access to a small plane or helicopter or know of someone who can help? Leave a comment and I’ll get the right people in touch with each other.

Roaring Town of Tabora

Like other remote towns across the world, weather rules. If it rains, nothing moves. Trucks and SUVs get stuck in dirt roads.  No produce can get into town so costs skyrocket. Therefore no one goes into town. It’s too messy and too expensive.

When it’s hot, everyone restricts their movement to mornings and evenings. The middle of the day is for resting or ‘pumsika’ in Kiswhali. The picture above is of one of those hot days. If you look closely you can even see a woman carrying her goods on her head. I’ve yet to master this handy – or rather hands-free – method.

The only saving grace on hot days like this is something cold to eat or drink. Most dukas (shops) advertise ice cream on their signs. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that actually has this euphoric commodity. Alas, we found a bin, unmarked, packed with melted and re-frozen ice cream bars! It was pure heaven.

Here’s Siwan enjoying her first bit of ice cream in 8 weeks.

Dinner at the Houlis’

The HAPO office manager, Mama Houli, invited us volunteers over to eat traditional rice and beans with her 7 children, 3 aunts, their children, and her husband, a locust prevention specialist in the region.

We were quite the excitement of the evening just for being so strange and white. As soon as we got out of the taxi I was nearly knocked over by a hug from a little girl I’d never seen before.  That little boy in my lap just kept laughing at the white girls sitting on the couch. And the woman next to me couldn’t resist picking at my hair to feel for herself what wazungu hair felt like.

Here are a few more photos from the night.

Broadband in Tanzania!!!!!!!

The broadband modems have finally reached Tabora – 3 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours, and 22 minutes late. Not that I was keeping track or anything.  The phone company TTCL took down names and a security deposit over a month ago. A few days ago everyone who is anyone in this town got the text from their inside contact to come and get the modem. It was a big day. The bible study group praised god. The tech nerds cried a little. And the wired-wazungus got downright giddy as you can see above.

What does this all mean? Well the installation guy had to go to Mwanza so we’ll have to wait for him to get back, which could be anytime in the next 7 days. Then we’ll have to see if the TTCL activated our account. If not, it could be another week before we get to try out the internet at the office. Once we’re up and running, we have to quickly find out if we signed up for the right plan (pay per gigabyte). Fingers crossed, the internet will be available for regualr emails and blog updates daily for 30 days. Yay!