I guess it’s been over three months
since my last update, so I apologize. So much has gone on it’s hard to imagine.
I left for Tanzania in mid-Feb and then returned 6 weeks later to Kansas for
the funeral of my twin brother. After a month at home I returned to Tanzania in
late April. I was met at the Nairobi airport by a former Maryknoll Lay
Missioner, Kathleen Dunford. We then journeyed to Tanzania in late April.
Kathy was
in Kenya for 5 years as a Physician’s Assistant, so is comfortable with the life
style hear, but Kowak and Tanzania are significantly different than the larger
town of Kitale and the English speaking Kenya. So far she is doing very well
and will be returning home (N.C.) at the end of July to discern what she wants
to do next year. She has been a tremendous help in the short time here. She
escorted one elderly priest, Fr Dick Quinn, back to New York after just being
here 3 weeks, so that was a big help for the Maryknoll Fathers.
I drove Fr Conard, our Kowak pastor,
back to Nairobi in early May for his flight home. This is his time for a 3
months home leave, so he will return at the end of July and I will try to keep
things running while he is gone. Of course, the Tanzania priest is here to do
his religious duties while I do the project management and pay for supplies and
salaries. I returned to Kowak a week before Fr Jim departed so spent most of
that time getting the financial records up to date so he could see what we had
to work with before his departure.
One of the
first things Fr Jim did was approve the payment for the new websites for the secondary
school and the hospital. Kathy and I hope to finish most of the questions to
get the hospital site activated by the end of July. It has been hard to find
the time to work on that lately but things are starting to slow down a little
now. In fact she and I are at Tembo beach, in Musoma, today enjoying the breeze
and atmosphere of less people and especially less children that we are
surrounded with daily in Kowak. Some of you may recall the name Tembo as the
place we Lay Missioners frequently visited on Friday evenings after a hard week
at language school in the winter of 2006.
In addition
to the weekly management of several construction projects at Kowak hospital I
was asked to donate blood to a very sick freshman student at the secondary
school. She has sickle cell anemia and her hemoglobin had dropped to 5.1. Her
parents had driven up from Mwanza (4 hrs south) and they were frantically
looking for donors, but A neg is a rare blood type here and fortunately that is
my type. So I felt very fortunate to help and her parents felt like I saved her
life. I’m not sure how accurate that was.
I was
especially blessed with a $1,000 donation in late Feb for mosquito nets by the
youth group at Queen of the Holy Rosary near my home in KS. To that I added
another $500 from friends in KS, Utah and England so I was able to purchase 420
nets for local mothers with young babies. I then met a young man, Charles, in
the village who had just finished high school and was home deciding what to do
next. I was amazed to see how many
people he knew and how many knew him so he was a natural to help prepare a list of mothers with young babies. They have a great system called Nyumba Kumi Kumi
here in the villages of TZ. Every 10 neighbors has a group leader that they keeps
informed about the needs of those ten (kumi) homes (nymuba). So Charlie went to
each village leader and ask them for a list of mothers.
After a week we had a list of 130
or so families. He and I then spent the next several weeks, as time permitted,
distributing nets, taking pictures and asking their religion, and number of
children. So I spent 2 to 3 hours each day hiking up and down hills and through
bush and really got my exercise. We visited 20 hoems each day. Ugh! But it was
very fulfilling and I got to meet many new people as well as a few I knew from
church or hospital or school activities over the years. A few weeks later I
received 200 rosaries in addition to the 40 or so I was given before I departed
in Feb. I then started distributing them and pictures to the 130 families I had
given nets to earlier; again a lot of exercise.
Now I have another 140 nets and am
preparing a list for two neighboring areas of our village. I hope I have the
health and energy to keep going with Charlie. If not I’ll have someone else go
but then the picture quality will be much less and I really enjoy the
experience and need the exercise. I’ve lost about 6 lbs already.
We finished three hospital projects
over the last 4 weeks. Those are two toilets and a wash station all for
patients. We also finished the fence around the sister’s convent. Next we want
to make a fence around the hospital and pave the area around the old patient toilets,
bathing area and wash station. That will be paved with concrete bricks that are
pretty decorative and made here by the school craftsman.
My health is staying good and I
have had no malaria for over two years. I plan to return in early November to
spend the winter in Kansas City and visit the new friends I have there now. I
especially miss the contemplative group at Guardian Angel and they keep me
copied well on their exciting activities.
