EASTER WEEK IN TANZANIA

EASTER WEEK IN TANZANIA ..March 5, 2013

            I’m now in Nairobi, Kenya but departing tomorrow (Sunday) for home (Kowak). Vikki and I brought our Utah volunteers (Henry and Jeanne) up to catch their plane on Wednesday. It was the trip from hell (13 hrs on the road and 2 hrs in the dark and rain). Not fun. When we arrived at the border customs would not allow us to bring the RAV4 across due to lack of registration papers. So we had to wait another hour for our head master to bring the school pickup. We could not get car insurance for Kenya a week early (very strange) so had to get it at the border (another delay and cost). After two hours on the road the car over-heated due to a bad radiator cap. We hired someone to look for another cap that would fit our car and after 2 hours we were back on the road. It started raining and we had all our luggage under an old tarpaulin in the truck bed. We finally found a small hardware store to buy a plastic sheet to go under the tarp. Things still got wet. We reached the steep escarpment outside of Nairobi about 10 minutes after dark (7 pm) and the rain came down harder. We followed larger lorries up the escarpment as it was impossible to pass and nearly impossible to see the side of the road due to lack on painted lines. We finally made it to the Maryknoll Society House about 8:45 pm and got a quick left-over dinner that we scarfed down. What a day; it is normally an 8 hours drive.

            Last week Vikki and I took Henry and Jeanne to the Serengeti Park where they hired a driver for two days. Henry loves photography so they spent one night camping in the park and two nights just outside at the West gate in a little cabin. Vikki had never been in the park so after we dropped off Henry and Jeanne we drove into the park for a couple hours before heading back to Kowak (2 hr drive). We saw quite a few animals but it was not the migration season. Still it is fun any time of year and it has been over a year since my last visit. We got some good photo’s and Henry said he really got some nice ones.

            A few days later I met Henry and Jeanne in Musoma, as they caught the bus back part way. Henry and I then picked up Liz Mach, our long time Maryknoll Lay Missioner. We three all headed south for a few days camping with the Watatulu tribe and Fr Dan Ohmann in the Tabora Region. Jeanne went back to Kowak. I try to do this each year but missed it last year. We spent the first night with the Maryknoll priests in Mwanza and had a nice Indian dinner at our favorite hotel with 11 of the local Maryknoll Lay Missioners. It was great to see them again. In Tabora we had a great time despite the occasional rains each evening (this is the rainy season all over). We did get pretty wet one evening and Henry slept the last few hours in the truck. Fortunately it was sunny and dry during the day, until the Monday of our departure. We hit high water levels on our normal route so took another longer route that we were able to manage despite several hours of mud and some dry paths (no roads) until 10 am. We had departed our village (Chagana) at 6 am (1 hr before sunrise) so we had to pack up the tents in the rain. Fr Dan (now 86 yrs) had 10 school kids in the back of his truck and I had 6 adults including the driver (me).

            This was Henry’s first trip to this remote area and we met Emmy, a young volunteer (31 yrs) there from Slovakia who has been teaching at a local kindergarten the last 3 yrs. This was also her first time in this area and they both really enjoyed it. We arrived Holy Thursday and had services each day and visited lots of locals during the day to get pictures and see their simple life style. It is like going back to visit the Native Americans 150 years ago. They all seemed very happy with nothing. Besides our 10 school kids we had many of their parents that Dan had brought in and us 5 wazungu (whites). By the time  Easter rolled around we had a total of about 70 people for Easter dinner (1 goat and 1 chicken). We visited a local family who was preparing for a large wedding feast on Good Friday afternoon so there we about 50 people there waiting for the bride and groom to arrive. We convinced them they needed pictures taken, of course. We just got back in time for a late “way-of-the-cross’.  We were all invited to a nice dinner at the local Pentecostal church Saturday afternoon. The pastor was out making rounds but his wife was there to greet us. She has been living there in the bush since 1993. She said they had just got married then and were living in a tent. It got pretty scary at night with the lions, elephants and hyena’s roaming around.  She is of the local tribe so and is charming and smart. Back at our camp we had the 8 pm Holy Saturday mass (2 hr). Then we had a big dance with the locals that lasted until 3 am I heard. Emmy stayed up for that. Most of us were in bed by midnight. There were a lot of young mothers there, each with a baby under 10 months on her back and bobbing up and down to the singing. The men danced on one side facing the women on the other and the teenagers in the middle. What fun. We recorded the singing.

            I hope this finds you all well and ready for the Easter Season. Tom in East Africa     

WEEK THREE IN KOWAK,  17 March, Saint Patrick’s Day

It’s Sunday morning and I’m driving Fr Conard to his to masses at the local parish churches. The first mass starts in a few minutes so I’m in the car until it starts. I’ll just skip the second and type in the car if my battery holds out. He had a difficult week at the hospital. First our young doctor resigned without any suggestions that he would not renew his 1^st one year contract. We really don’t know why yet. His wife and child live 4 hours south in Mwanza so that may be a factor, of course, but he would never admit a women has influence over him. Anyway the new AMO (doctor’s assistant) is doing very well and is a better surgeon, so that helps. He just retired and moved here a few months ago.

A young nurse was caught stealing meds one night this week and was fired. This upset several of the medical staff, including the doctor, and a new CO (clinical officer). The other CO supported the sisters (administrators) and said all the others are stealing meds also instead of giving them to the patients on the night shift, so they don’t want any procedures to change their source of extra income. Anyway, a few days later the doctor resigned and then Fr Conard and Sr Teresa got a call the next day from the DMO (district medical officer) to come to a meeting at his office. He basically said if the young doctor was not given full administrative control of the hospital he would have it demoted to a Health Clinic and we would loose any funds given by the federal government so expansion and training (basket fund). He is still mad because he had to return the $6,000 of basket fund he stole from us last year in a fake audit. So yesterday I drove Fr Conard and Sr Teresa into Musoma to meet with the bishop, who owns the hospital, and his lawyer and the human resources manager. The meeting went well and the sister felt much better, with hope that they would be able to stay and not return to Indian.

While they were in their meeting I did some shopping for the mission and school (food and supplies) and had lunch with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners who were all working on the new home of our oldest missioner, Liz Mach. She works for the bishop now so wanted to move closer to the office. The three new lay missioners finish language school on Holy Thursday and head to Mwanza so it was good to see them again before they depart this area. Vikki also came in with our head master. She bought a TV and dish so was in a hurry to get home and get it installed. I bought 40 seedling fruit trees ((35 cents each) for the school as part of the project of our Utah volunteer Henry. He has an area cleared and fence post up near the school pig pen. So they will start running barbed wire Monday and getting the seedlings in the ground. Henry took a group of 20 students from the environmental club to the Agro Forestry nursery in Musoma last Friday and they all enjoyed it very much. They then had lunch on the beach of Lake Victoria and a few had to jump in, uniforms and all. 

WEEK TWO IN KOWAK March 12, 2013

            Well it’s been a busy few days. This is Tuesday night. The bishop was here today visiting with the Indian sisters from Nairobi and our pastor and the Head Master (Elias) of the Kowak Girls’ Secondary. These are exciting times for the school. The Indian sisters will take over the school in June and 4 new sisters will be brought in. Alex will remain as the school bursar (accountant) and Elias will be demoted to Second Master and teacher, which he prefers after three years in administration. The new Head Mistress is currently a Head Mistress at Mafinga Girls’ Secondary in central Tanzania, which is the second ranked school of the 4400 secondary schools in the country. She will bring a personal secretary with her and two teaching nuns, with more to come in the future. Our current Tanzanian teachers (20) are a little nervous. The two new teaching nuns are science teachers and the new Head Mistress will also be teaching (math and physics).

            Yesterday I took my friend Vikki to the border to get another 1 year visitors visa since her residence permit has not yet been approved after a year of waiting. The delay has been due to lost papers by the immigration people in Dar es Salaam and she had all the documents to show that. She was finally able to talk them into giving her a residence permit for two years so we were very excited about that and it was a big relief after worrying about getting another visitors visa back to back. While at the border I met two former Kowak graduates who had just finished junior college at other schools. It was great to see them again. They will start University in the Fall. Then I met another one who was home in her village near Kowak as we were driving home. She is in her senior year at University. He father is on our school board so I had just stopped to say hi to him when I learned she was home. Her two older and younger sisters also attended Kowak so I know them well also.

            Our electrician was finally able to repair the generator which runs the new well water pump so we are finally getting some water in the school tanks after 3 weeks of rationing using the old smaller pump which requires electrical power from the grid. That has only been available at nights for the last 10 days. So that repair just occurred yesterday and was well worth celebrating. We will not have to close the school due to lack of water.

                      

            I had a fun Sunday with the village kids flying kites I brought last year, and then later in the day we had a fun game of softball with my experienced team from last year (now seniors). The sophomores watched us play Saturday and were begging to learn the game, so we had our first practice session after the seniors game on Sunday. The new girls did very well so I may need to practices several days a week after classes, to get them up to speed.

            The new doctors office building and out-houses are just about finished. The doors and windows of the office were just finished and the paint and tile finished today. So, most of the construction will be finished until more money comes in for more projects. We had a near disaster today when our security guard at the hospital started the generator and left the oil cap off. It blew oil all over the place so he shut it down and put the cap back so he would not get caught. Then he claimed he did not know where the oil came from. While we were waiting for our mechanic to figure out the problem the surgery theatre lost power and had to finish a caesarian in the dark. Fortunately it was still day light so they were able to finish with low light. An hour later the mechanic figured out what had happened. So, we plan to buy a smaller generator to mount just outside the theatre for lights and instruments. Never a dull moment here, as usual.   Tom  in Kowak 

WEEK ONE IN KOWAK

WEEK ONE IN KOWAK , March 8, 2013

It’s Friday evening and it was an enjoyable and slow week here in Kowak village. Our American visitor, Lora, from Duke Univ had an enjoyable visit and departed yesterday. She hopes to return in June with a new research student to help implement a 2 month evaluation of a little catsup-like envelope meds for HIV positive babies. We are looking forward to her return and her student. This will be the first trip for this student to Africa so this will be quit an experience for her. Lora will be going home in August to get married and attend grad school.

            I assisted our Utah volunteer, Henry, in getting his first fence erected for his little tree seedling garden to keep our cows, goats and sheep out. He and I and his wife attended the debate club practice competition yesterday and found it interesting and inspiring in some ways. They were debating the advantages of women-only teachers in a girl’s boarding school. We are about 80% male teachers. I then attended one of Henry’s computer training classes which is open to anyone who wants to practice after normal class hours. He usually gets at least 20 and sometimes 50 or 60 girls every afternoon. I think he enjoys it also. His wife Jeanne is teaching freshman English plus extra sessions after class for the weaker students. I am sponsoring one of them and she is really weak so I suspect she will be repeating Form I if she does not pick it up pretty quickly. That is the disadvantage of sponsoring the village students who come from really poor primary schools. I had one last year who had to repeat but they say she is doing well this year in Form II. 

            I saw one of my other sponsored students several times this week and gave her a gift for completing “A” level (Junior college) last month. She is a local village girl and came to our hospital for treatment. They found that she may have chronic typhoid and is now getting injections every 8 hours. It’s a wonder she was able to finish her exams before she arrived. I haven’t seen the medical bill yet but at least she has friends she can stay with nearby. The hospital is getting more popular every year because of it’s good medical staff and nice facilities and lack of corruption; unlike the other hospitals all over TZ. We have some young doctors that are talented and really dedicated as are the nurses and Indian sisters. The new children’s ward is going up quickly and should be completed by July. That will add another 54 beds to the 120 we have now.  The new doctor’s offices (OPD) will also be completed about the same time.

            We had 2 visitors from Baylor University Medical School in Mwanza today testing for HIV by pricking the finger tips of 99 babies at the CTC (HIV) treatment center, so that was a busy place today. The mothers were able to get the results within one hour so they were very pleased. The visitors just departed a few minutes ago and seemed very pleased with the good turnout. 

            It rained all night so it looks like the rainy season is right on schedule. Everyone was very pleased, even thought we also got some light showers later in the afternoon. Anyway that postponed our plans for removing the well water pump #3 until tomorrow. Apparently something is jammed so it has to be removed and inspected. Fortunately it is only 60 meters down so relatively shallow. I sure hope it is not damaged. It is an expensive German pump (Grundfos) like those in our other two wells (boreholes is the British term they use here).

            Fr Conard has malaria again so he has not been feeling well the last two days. He had to miss two meetings in Musoma yesterday and today but hates to go to those anyway. We are hoping he is healthy for the big meeting Tuesday when the bishop comes to sign contracts for changing the administration of the secondary school. He plans to give it to the Indian sisters that are currently running the hospital (Sister of Adoration).  The teachers are very nervous about this big change so I hope we don’t loose any until they give them a chance to get started (July). I’m very pleased with this change and anxious to see what changes they will be making. The other school they administer in TZ was 2^nd in the National exams for Form IV. We were 55^th of 4400 schools.

            The power just went out 5 minutes ago. Fr Conard just came in to inform me that a young woman was just being wheeled in for a caesarian about 15 minutes ago, so they had to quickly start the generator. I’m glad we got it fixed this week. 

Tom in Kowak

BACK IN TANZANIA

BACK IN TANZANIA,   March 4, 2013  --Kenya Election Day

            I arrived back in Tanzania Friday afternoon (Mar 1) on schedule after 19 hrs in the air and 19 hrs waiting in airports. That evening I was pleased to meet the new Maryknoll Lay Missioners who were all in Mwanza for the week. Three had just come down from the Musoma language school for their mid-term break. The other 4 new ones finished language school last Spring and now all reside in Mwanza, which is a 4 hr drive south on the south shore of Lake Victoria. I also met our two oldest missioners, Liz and Joanne, our 2 Maryknoll sisters, 2 Maryknoll priests and 2 Maryknoll brothers. They had gathered there at the Mabatini parish for a Lenten reflection Friday evening.  I then went to dinner at a nice restaurant on the lake with the lay missioners so I could get to know them a little better. What a nice way to spend my first day back.

            The next day I was picked up by one of our Indian sisters, Teresa, from Kowak Hospital and her driver who had been in town buying drugs for the hospital. The ambulance was packed with drugs so we were barely able to squeeze my 4 bags in. We arrived back in Kowak in time for dinner, thanks to no mechanical problems. I was greeted by many who recognized me now after 7 yrs at the mission. That is always a nice feeling to see a smile on their faces, esp. the kids. This is the warmest time of year (85F) here, so it is still sinking in after leaving some pretty cool and white conditions in Kansas City. I was especially pleased to see our lay volunteer Vikki again, who has been “holding down the fort” while I’ve been on home leave, the last 4 months. I was glad to finally meet the two short term volunteers, Jean and Henry from Utah, who arrived in January and will be here one more month.

            The next day, Sunday, my house mate, Fr Conard had scheduled a nice welcome home party that evening, so it was a great time to say hi to everyone again and enjoy some great food and drink. We even had a special American guest who arrived that afternoon from the Arusha area near Kilimanjaro. She, Lora, is a young Biomedical engineer working in Arusha for Duke University. She had come to see if our hospital outreach program might fit their qualifications for medical equipment assistance in a new project to supply HIV medication to new babies at the very earliest stages. She will be with us for about 4 days and seems to like what she has seen so far. She has been in Tanzania 4 yrs, so has good Swahili skills and traveled alone by bus after flying to Mwanza; impressive.

            Today I delivered the three microscopes and 4 cameras to the secondary school and greeted many of the girls that I have come to know pretty well. They all told me how fat I have become at home. That is a complement hear, but somehow I did not feel that good about it. I will give the 20 girls on our softball teams their gifts later this week and give the 25 teachers and staff the little gifts I brought them tomorrow at breakfast tea. I saw some of them at chai today. I brought the men neck ties and the women little wrist watches. Henry showed me his new seedling tree project which is doing very well. I hope to attend one of Jeane’s English classes for the 120 freshman girls. I did talk to our regular English teacher and he said she is really giving him good suggestions for teaching techniques. We have a serious water problem which I hope to assist with in the coming days but it is due to the failure of electrical equipment on one of our two water well pumps, so I’m not sure how much I can do. This is our main pump because it is run by a generator and is not susceptible to the frequent electrical power outages of the other water well. They have had a lot of outages recently because of damages to a large gas turbine generator in Dar es Salaam on the East Coast. So our school tank was empty yesterday when I inspected it. It’s hard to keep 450 girls fed and bathed with the one pump that only operates part time. Never a dull moment, as usual.

 The bishop is scheduled to arrive next week for a big meeting to discuss the future management of the secondary school, so we are all anxious to hear what that is about. I am hoping to make another camping trip with my friend Liz and our new volunteer Henry during Holy Week. So, I hope that all comes together as planned and I can see the Watatulu tribe again and our elderly priests Fr Dan and Don who work with them. Today I am on my one-day-a-week water only Fast for Lent, so will be ready for a big breakfast tomorrow of pourage (Ugi).

Tom in Kowak