BACK HOME FOR THE 2017 HOLIDAY AND MORE

        I've been back in the US since mid November after a short three months in Kowak. Christmas is just around the corner so I’m working a little on the decorations, but mostly just visiting family and friends since I returned about 6 weeks ago. I spent a few days in Louisville and Atlanta visiting my son’s.

        Kowak was a different experience this year, mostly due to the absence of Fr Conard, who I lived with the last 11 years. It is unlikely that he will be allowed to return to Tanzania except, perhaps, for a short goodbye visit next year. I have volunteered to escort him through the airports, if and when he goes. As planned, I did work on his finances this year to document where his money and the Maryknoll funds were used the first six months of the year. He departed for Kenya and then New York at the end of June. 

      I had planned to stay six months this year but found there was not much work for me after I finished the financial reports. As I mentioned in the last blog (August) we had a volunteer nurse (Maranda) from Minnesota who arrived a couple weeks before me and she stayed two months as planned. She was a real jewel and we had a lot of fun in the school, hospital and surrounding villages. She worked every morning in the hospital, mostly in the children's ward and then the afternoons at the girl’s secondary school. She fell in love with the girls and them with her, so I always knew where to find her in the afternoons. 

      We had the Silver Jubilee for the Kowak Girl’s Secondary School a week after I arrived (Aug 26th) and the Form IV (seniors) graduation Sept 30, so Maranda got to see the difference in an African vs US graduation and meet some of parents of the graduates and their families. I took video's of the Jubilee for Fr Conard and still photos of many of the 116 graduates for prints and for the school Facebook page. 

      We did have one sad event just a few weeks after I arrived. One of the seniors died suddenly a few days before graduation. Maranda and I were there when the 420 students were gathered and were given the sad news. It was devastating, especially to the other seniors who had lost another classmate just the year before, almost to the day. The student had been fine until just a few days before she died. Maranda and I stayed up late that night preparing memorial cards for the memorial Mass the next morning, just as Therese McCarthy and I had done the year before. A few days later we attended the funeral and burial at her grandmother’s home in Sirori Simba about two hours from school. About 20 students and 10 school staff joined us. It was very crowded and very sad. 

      Maranda and I made three other trips during her stay. One was to a new English-medium primary school which had been built last year buy my friend Fr Joel Marwa in his home village. It opened in January to pre-schoolers, so we were invited to meet the 30 young students, teacher and staff and have lunch there. One week-end we spent the night in Musoma with my friend Liz Mach who is our oldest Maryknoll Lay Missioner and is also a nurse from Minnesota. She celebrated 41 years as a lay missioner in Tanzania so she and Maranda had a lot to talk about. It was a fun week-end. The last trip was a short one day tour of the Serengeti Park with Liz and Maranda. We did not see as many animals as usual, but we did see a lot, and some unusually good looks at several hyena, ostrich, many giraffe and a huge number of hippopotamus. It was a fun day and night. 

       Maranda headed home in mid October, after a sad goodbye to the students and hospital. I continued to work with the new pastor, Fr Julius Ogolla, until mid November. During my stay I met several other village students and one KGSS senior who needed financial help, so I agreed  to sponsor them (5). Maranda and her parents also agreed to sponsor one of the sophomore (Form II) students for the next two years. We also both contributed to the fund raiser for the secondary school to help build a new assembly hall. I received two donations from a couple in Colorado for soccer balls, volleyballs and volleyball nets so I gave them to the secondary school and two village volleyball men’s teams and one hospital women’s volleyball team. As usual I took a lot of photo’s during this visit and distributed the photos. I distributed mosquito nets and photos and rosaries to the hospital maternity patients as I have done several years.  I paid a few medical bills including one for my older friend, Mzee Rya, who had cataract surgery after I left.

       We had three very nice visitors who stayed with us at Kowak Mission my last two weeks there. Alesha was a graduate student from the Univ of Toronto; Editha was one of her research assistants from Arusha, and Lameck was the other research assistant from Mwanza. They were all very pleasant and fun to have around at meal time. Alesha is working on her PhD for the next 3 months at Kowak and the final 3 months in another village not far away. We have two American volunteers (Jay and Kathy) coming in late January from Colorado to teach English for two months so I helped them make the contacts before them arrive. Maybe I’ll meet them, if Fr Conard is allowed to return while they are there.

       I attended several Masses in outstations with Fr Ogolla. One of them was for a blessing of the new church in Miko which Fr Conard finished building just before he departed. I took a nice video during that Mass and Blessing ceremony to show Fr Conard in November. I stopped in New York on my way home and spent three days with Fr Conard at the assisted living center (St Teresa’s) at Maryknoll. We had a very nice visit and he was able to view my video’s with the help of Fr Dick Quinn, Fr Conard’s first pastor in Africa. I also got to greet many of the older Maryknoll priests I knew when they were in Africa.

        Merry Christmas ya’all

MY ELEVENTH YEAR IN EAST AFRICA STARTED TODAY

        I was just reading my last blog from Nov 2 of how it might be my last trip to East Africa. I wanted to spend the year home with family and friends for a change while I had good health, but I made the mistake of reading a book called Being Mortal. I also planned to attend the 55^th reunion of my Chanute High School class in September since I had missed the 50^th and some classmates have died since then. But the book convinced me of the importance of spending time with the elderly in the last years of their lives and that is the case with our Maryknoll pastor, Fr Conard, in his 87^th year of life and 61^st year of mission in Tanzania. As it turned out I suspect this will be Fr Conard’s last year in Tanzania.

        I was also attracted to return by the scheduled visits of two new sets of volunteers and the potential return of one or two former Kowak volunteers. You read about them in my last blog, I hope.  The new volunteers included a retired couple from Hawaii, the Shannons. They arrived in mid-July and are scheduled to depart the mission today (Aug 19^th), so I will miss them. I certainly regret that but my return was delayed about two weeks due to a sudden medical issue the day I was scheduled to depart. That seems to be under control now. The other new volunteer is a new nursing graduate that was scheduled to travel with me, so she had to travel alone which I also regret, but God had other plans. Maranda arrived fine as scheduled.  She’ll stay until mid-October, then I’m hopeful to have a returning volunteer, Dr Jim, for two or three weeks. The lovely Therese McCarthy has family issues which will keep her home this year but we are praying for a better year and a visit next year.

        It won’t be the same without Fr Conard, of course and we are all praying he will recover and return to Kowak soon. He fell during mass in mid-June and injured his back. But the main problem now seems to be more mental and recognizing that he is back in America for treatment. His back pain is under control and he is sleeping well. I’ll be working on his financial reports for this year and his project reports for Maryknoll project money that should all be spent now, since the projects are mostly completed. My change of departure allowed me to schedule a visit to Maryknoll in NY to visit Fr Conard which I am so happy I did. He really needed me and others to cheer him up. 

        I’ve had a wonderful visit in Kansas and around the country since I returned last November. In addition to seeing my sons Adam and Kyle in Kentucky and Georgia and their lovely wives and children, they came to visit me and the extended family in June. It was a fun week. I traveled to Miami with Sr Barbara McCracken for two weeks in February as we did the previous year. It was great to see Rose Anderson and many of her friends again. Rose came to see me just two weeks ago on her way home from a Colorado vacation so that was a fun surprise for my going away party attended by 40 friends and family. I also received  over $600 in gifts for mosquitos nets for the new mothers at Kowak hospital.

        Last April I went to visit Vikki Smith in Salem, OR, for two weeks and meet many of her friends. The scenery was wonderful but meeting her sisters and friends and getting to visit the Mt Angel Abbey was a special treat. I also got to see our friend Bertha Haas in Portland and my cousin Joyce and her husband and son in Portland. A real treat was the fund raiser, Taste of Tanzania, for the handicapped children’s school in Tanzania and getting to meet one of our former Kowak volunteers, Patty Murphy, a retired PA in Portland. At the end of April and early May I made one last two week trip to Utah with my friends the Johnson brothers, David and Jim, to see several National Parks and visit former Kowak volunteers, Henry and Jean who live in Salt Lake City. Jean escorted us through the wonderful Natural History museum at the University of Utah and we three were given use of their condo for a week in Moab, while we re-visited the parks in that area.  It was a wonderful trip with a lot of video photography to enjoy when we got home. We topped off the trip with a visit to the Trappist Monastery in Snow Mass, CO  and an overnight in lovely Basalt nearby.

        The last two months of my home stay in June and July were spent at home and at church with my contemplative prayer group and listening to wonderful spirituality speakers like Sr Elia Delio who our group sponsored at Avila University in late June. Most weekends were with family in my backyard swimming, playing lots of croquet and watching the kids on the new swings and on the old trampoline. The weather was great nearly every weekend so it made for a wonderful family summer.  Thanks you all.

FINAL DAYS IN EAST AFRICA 2016

                   My year in Tanzania has now come to an end and it may well be my last for any long term work here. It has been a wonderful 10 plus years of mission work and I will miss it dearly. I will especially miss the daily activities of Fr James who his just completing 60 years of mission work in Tanzania, most of it at Kowak village parish. We had two wonderful American volunteers these last few weeks which had made it even more enjoyable and eventful that other periods; Therese McCarthy a teacher from AZ and Dr Goetz a medical doctor from NY. We all just arrived in Nairobi on our way home.

            Fr Jim went home to NY and Green Bay again this year in early June to celebrate his 60 years as a priest so I took over a few small jobs of construction in June and July. I could have done more but Fr Jim so enjoys these construction projects and is much better at it than I am. Indeed he seemed to kick into high gear after he returned and had his celebrations here with the local parish and again with the diocese in August.

            I continued my daily projects of distributing mosquito nets, rosaries and photos to the new mothers in the maternity wards and miscellaneous financial projects to keep the money and materials and school fees flowing. I finished with distributing 150 nets and 200 rosaries at the hospital and another 50 nets to the secondary school. The remaining 100 rosaries from Queen of the Holy Rosary went to people in the parish.

            Our volunteers also brought many items to distribute and they donated over 700 mosquito bracelets to the secondary school students and staff and the hospital staff. Doctor Jim also brought 10 home-made children’s dresses and 10 pair of shorts which we distributed to needy children in the Alala village near Kowak. They were all thrilled. I gave away several of my books and some reading glasses to a few families that could read English and the clothes I was not bringing home were also distributed just before I left.

            Therese and I made it into the Serengeti Park one last time after a stop to visit my friend, Fr Joel Marwa, a young priest that I have helped over the years. He surprised us by showing us the new primary school he is building in his home village. That money came from donations he received during his ordination two years ago. I helped with a significant contribution along with a Maryknoll priest that helped him for many years after his parents died. This will be an English medium school to help improve the education there in his home village. This is badly needed all over Tanzania and many pastors are starting to do this since young Kenya teachers are available in surplus at this time and their English is much better than the Tanzania teachers.

            The Serengeti trip was more of an adventure than usual this time. There were more than the usual number of animals due to the recent rainfalls and this being the migration season from the north part of the park. But the real adventure started when the car broke down about 40 miles from the park exit. The bad roads had caused the radiator to break loose and start leaking. After it cooled down we had to refill the radiator every ten minutes for the next two hours. We finally made it out the gate at 6:30 pm as darkness fell, 30 minutes past the deadline for closing the park. We went thru over ten gallons of water so we had to stop twice to refill the water jug from a ditch along the road side.  We spent the night at the gate hotel and the hospital driver and mechanic came the next day to exchange vehicles so we could drive home (2 hrs) while they made repairs.

            A few days ago Maryknoll sent a driver and vehicle to move us three and our luggage plus a visiting priest, Larry Radice, back to Nairobi to catch our flights home. The driver was 3 hours late arriving at the border so we got in pretty late after a 9 hour ride.  Another volunteer nurse, Rosemary Drew, arrives from Maryland on Nov 9 but we will all be gone by then. I depart tonight and am really looking forward to seeing the family. Therese and I had a couple days to kill so we spent one of them biking and hiking in a small national park near just north of Nairobi called Hell’s Gate. It is the only park that allows you to get out of your vehicle in all East Africa, I am told.

  

ESCORTING FR. CONARD TO NAIROBI

I arrived back in East Africa on April 5 and have been in Kowak village in Tanzania since then. I escorted our Maryknoll pastor, Fr Conard, to Nairobi on May 31^st so he could return to the Maryknoll Fathers headquarters and home to Green Bay. He will celebrate his 60th year of priesthood at the end of June in New York and then again with family in mid-July in Green Bay. We expect to see him back in Kowak by Aug 5^th. He will have a third celebration here on August 11 at his parish where he has lived the last 38 years. He is the last of his 50+ ordination classmates to still work overseas. 12 are still alive, I believe. 

             I want to thank my friends at our Tuesday Mystics prayer group in Kansas City for their prayers and generous support of my ministry and the Maryknoll ministry at Kowak hospital. They have given me over $500 for mosquito nets for newborn babies and have given Fr Conard and the Kowak Hospital over $1,000 for needs there. We were blessed to finally find and employ a young doctor on March 1, Dr Lazaro Mwikwabe; he joins our older Dr Ernest in treating the local patients in our area. We are especially blessed that he is from a village in our area and we hope to keep him here for many years. He is 30 yrs old and was just married in February to a lovely young lady, Devota, who is also from our area (Tarime). She just got her BA degree in Human Resources a few years ago.  Our new doctor is being trained by Dr Ernest in surgery and he has already done 45 surgeries in his first three months. We are averaging two major surgeries per day and about half of those are C sections. We average another 4 minor surgeries per day so the doctors keep very busy. We also have a large number of x rays and ultra sounds. Dr Ernest does all the ultra sounds. Sr Linet does the x rays.

            The Queen of the Holy Rosary parish in Mission, KS gave me 300 more rosaries to distribute among the local people and I have been doing that as well as distributing nets to new mothers. I have been concentrating primarily on mothers of new born babies at our hospital where we are averaging two births per day. In addition to the net and rosary I take their photo and give them a copy of it. They are very pleased. So far I have given out 31 nets in the last two weeks. One of my first mothers had triplets which thrilled us all, especially being the first triplets in many years at Kowak. Since she already had 7 children at home I gave her 4 nets. The following week another mother had twins so I gave her two nets. The young girl in this photo is the daughter of this mother of triplets and she is very attractive. You can see the babies usually are born much lighter in complexion.

            Our 170 bed rural hospital was recently awarded a Three Star rating by the national health survey which makes us at least equal to the District Government Hospital in this area. The best hospitals can achieve a Five Star rating.

            In addition to the daily visits to the hospital I have spent a lot of time on the computer entering the financial data generated since I departed in November. I finally issued a 4^th quarter, 1^st quarter and partial 2^nd quarter report for Fr Conard so he could make decisions on what money is available for repairs and construction over the next two months while he is on home leave.  I also prepared a budget for next year since he had to request money from Maryknoll by mid-May. We have about 4 projects totaling $24,000 that was requested.  I have been given two or three smaller projects to work on in addition to the routine repairs in the two months Fr Jim is home. We also hope to purchase a small lorry next year to haul medicines from Mwanza, four hours south. We recently got news that one foundation in Minnesota will give us $10,000 over their normal donation next year.

            One of my least pleasant projects recently was the termination of our grinding mill operator who we have employed the last two years. I had to find a new operator and train him for the last three weeks before terminating Kurwa. Lawrence has good references and a lot of experience so I hope he works out. This is a difficult job mostly due to the temptations with handling money in a very poor area.

            Fr Conard just finished construction of a large church about 18 km from our parish. We had a lovely mass and church blessing last week-end (Corpus Christi Sunday) and I took a video of it for him to take home. I just burned a few DVD’s for him and friends. I am also working on a video of the Kowak Girls Secondary senior class (Form IV). The teachers are doing most of this work and it will also be about an hour long. This DVD will be a gift to my friends, Henry and Jeanne in Salt Lake City, who volunteered at the school here in early 2013 when these girls were freshman and just learning English. Three years makes a big difference and I think they will enjoy seeing them “grown up”.

            I just finished reading a wonderful biography of Pope Francis called “The Great Reformer”. It talks a lot about his love of the poor and his joy of being with the poor of Argentina. It has really helped me understand why I enjoy being here, especially these last two or three years where I have been able to get to know the locals versus the wealthier teachers and secondary students of previous years. The poor really have solidarity and enjoy the very simple things that most of us take for granted. Some of their biggest celebrations are funerals, masses and football games. We have had a lot of all three in recent months.  I wish you could see the joy they had in this blessing of their new church last week-end; such joyful singing and dancing during the gift giving. It was a real mix of young and old but everyone enjoying the “celebration” of the mass. In many ways similar to the joy they express during the local soccer games next to my house. I heard a local recently at one of the almost daily games, who had come home for the weekend. He was telling his friends how lucky they were to get to see these games so frequently for free where he had to pay significantly to see a game in the city of players he hardly knew.

            Speaking of sports, I have really been enjoying the amazing KC Royals games these last ten days on espn gamecast on my smart phone (3:15 am to 6:15 am). The come-from-behind victories remind me so much of the attitude and skills they demonstrated last year in the post season. This year’s rookies have been super, Thank God. We really needed them due to so many injuries of our top players.  I do miss those games with the family drinking beer on the back porch.

           

      

HEADING HOME FOR THE WINTER

It’s hard to believe it’s been 4 months since my last update. I’m been at the Kowak Mission since late April and am now heading home in a few hours for the winter in Kansas City.

What a wonderful year I’ve had at Kowak. It was so different from previous years because I got to meet many of the people in our village and go to their homes to delivery mosquito nets and rosaries (donated by friends and students from Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish) and take their photos. In my spare time on weekends I would walk around for exercise by visiting some of these same areas and having a smart phone with camera I was always being asked for pictures. I would then return the following weekend to deliver the photos. Most had never seen a picture of themselves, of course, so they were thrilled. Fortunately, getting photos developed is very cheap now and only an hour away.

Since I last wrote I went to Kitale, Kenya with our visiting PA, Kathy Dunford to escort her on her way back home. I also wanted to see the Korb’s from the KC area and our long term Maryknoll Lay Missioners Russ Brine and John O’Donohue. We just missed the Korb’s as John’s mother passed away a few days before we arrived. But we had a grand time with John O and Russ and saw lots of Kathy’s friends from her previous hospital and health care jobs. I got several ideas from the head of the hospital (an Indian sister) about things to help our hospital, like odor control powder for the toilets and a unique water filtration system using a clay pot made of American design.

Kathy and I had gone up on a new mini bus (12 passenger) system and it was quick (8 hrs) and easy, so I took it home. On the way up to Kenya I forgot to lock my luggage zippers so lost several computer cords due to sticky fingers. Kathy also lost some money but was not sure how. No problem coming home and the scenery is beautiful in this southwest section of Kenya with many hills and tea plantations. We had lots of good food in Kitale and got entertained by Russ’s primary school students. They are former street children. What a great program he has there.

Fr Conard returned at the end of July from 3 months of home leave. He visited all three brothers around the country and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Rochester who donates so generously for our hospital support. He immediately started working on building an outdoor area next to the rectory for the big Jubilee Mass for all the priests and sisters of our diocese. It was an all-day event as we had to feed most of the 1,000 in attendance. It is supposed to be at another parish next year but we are pushing the bishop to have it back at Kowak next year since it will be Fr Conard’s 60^th anniversary as a priest.

I made one last trip to Mwanza, our second largest city 4 hours south, to shop for medicine and a few items with our car mechanic, to get some repairs done and to buy a LaserJet color printer for the hospital. We hauled a crankshaft down for grinding and picked it up the next day. I arranged to have the medicines boxed up and waiting at the door for pick-up the next morning at two different pharmacies. I also arranged for the large color printer to be delivered to my hotel that evening to save me time finding parking space the next day to pick it up.  So it was a very successful trip with no punctures (flats) or breakdowns.

Of course the highlight of this last month was the wonderful baseball post-season the KC Royals had, culminating in the World Series Championship. Wow! What a team and what a season. Sure wish my twin brother had been alive to enjoy it as much as we did last year. I’m looking forward to returning home now to catch the end of those celebrations tomorrow night. I was on the bus Monday by 8 a.m. and headed to Nairobi during the last game so my friend Liz Mach was watching the game at home and texting me with the scores, inning by inning. Thank God she is a big sports fan. I feel very blessed.

Tom 

WITNESSING MY FIRST SURGERY

            i'm back at Tembo beach in Musoma. I wrote this a few days ago but did not have adequate internet speed to update the blog at that time. Now I even have wifi from the beach restaurant and am sitting in the shade with a nice lake breeze. What a life. Fr Conard is still on home leave so I’m trying to manage the mission while he’s gone and getting a few projects done. Between projects I’m trying to keep the accounting books up to date, distribute mosquito nets, photo’s and rosaries.  I’ve been dragging my feet on getting our new website for the hospital up and running, so today I reviewed what is still remaining to be done. Mostly the web builder needs more details on each service offered at the hospital and some photo’s of each service with a patient and doctor doing that service.

            So Thursday I was walking around looking for our American physician’s assistant, Kathy, to help me with some descriptions. I was unsuccessful in finding her so I asked for the doctor and the head nurse said he was just starting his fourth surgery. I asked her if there was any possibility of getting a photo of him in surgery for the website. She looked at me a little strange and then said she would ask him. I followed her to the door and waited. In a minute the doctor stuck his head out and asked for more info. I showed him my list of needs, one being a photo during surgery. He thought a minute and then told one of the nurses to get me ready. I was flabbergasted.  They were just preparing for a c-section.

            I got my gown on, my sandals, and mask and followed the nurse in. The doctor was just starting to apply the sterilizing lotion to the young ladies stomach. As I had heard from Kathy, he was saying prayers over the patient the whole time he applied the sterilizing lotion.  All I had was my smart phone because I was not expecting to take photo’s today. He then covered the naked body with a sheet, with a slit over the lower abdomen. I started shooting photo’s as he started cutting. Soon the dead embryo was removed and laid in a stainless tray. That was enough for me to take my exit. What an experience. I went back an hour later to see the doctor but he was in surgery doing his fifth of the day. What a man. So gentle, spiritual and humble. We are so lucky.

            Our carpenter, mason, mechanic and day laborers have just been doing small projects since we finished the three big ones last week. Those included a chain link fence around the convent, two toilets and a septic tank outside the hospital lab, an 8’ pit for disposal of hospital incinerator ashes and a washing station with 4 sinks and 4 clothes lines for the  patient’s families.

            This week we demolished the old incinerator, enlarged the new incinerator door, cleaned all three store rooms at the carpenter’s shop, cleaned the plumber’s shop, hailed off or burned the trash from each, and replaced the window screen and rotten wood around my front door. Today they started adding 300 bricks (4 rows) to the wall surrounding my back yard. The mechanic and helper took the diesel pump of our single cab pickup in town for repair and they finished installing it today. The helper could not find a front tire for our tractor so he will take the bus to Kenya tomorrow, since there are many more tractors there. We paid for a new tractor radiator weeks ago but the first one was the wrong size, so we are hoping the vendor can find the right size in Kenya.  He refuses to refund the money, of course.

            Cleaning the shops has turned up a wealth of items that were buried for so long that no one knew they were there. Were found 6 buckets of pipe fitting for steel, plastic, IPS and PVC pipe. That alone is now worth a fortune due to inflation. The last 12 months it has averaged 17 %; just a little above the 15% of previous years.

            Kathy our visiting PA is departing for home on July 21^st. She has been so busy at the hospital that the only site seeing has been two local towns which don’t have much to offer, except the beach on Lake Victoria in Musoma. Since it was the 4^th of July week-end we decided to drive down to Mwanza, the big city, where there are 7 Maryknoll Lay Missioners working and several sisters and a priest and brother. We learned they had planned a little beach party on Friday evening, so we invited ourselves and Liz, the local MKLM from Musoma. It was a 4 hour drive but well worth it. Saturday Liz and Kathy got a cut and color at Liz’s favorite shop while I made the rounds of my favorite hardware stores. When they finished at noon they both look great so we finished the day in a fabric store that is a big weakness for Kathy. I must admit I spent as much as anyone for family gifts. But I was particularly pleased with the hardware items I found which are not available in our small towns up North.

            About 3 pm we headed north for our last, but not least, stop; a nice hotel (Ndabaka Lodge) at the west gate of the Serengeti Park. Kathy had never been to the park and Liz and I always love to make at least one visit a year or more.  The rooms (cabins) were very nice and the meals were as well. We got in the park about 8 am and took our time stopping many places for pictures. If you know Liz or me you probably saw 10 or more of Liz’s favorite shots on her Facebook page Sunday evening. We were very fortunate to get some nice views of zebras, wildebeests, lions, hippos and crocks, plus a smattering of impalas, giraffes, gazelles, ostriches, and a nice eagle. No elephants this time but still a very nice quick trip (6 hours). It was right on the way home so we got back to the village by 6 pm. Next week Kathy and I will head up to Kitale, Kenya to visit more lay missioners that Kathy has worked with and I know most very well. After a 5 day week-end I’ll head home and Kathy will fly to Nairobi.

TEMBO BEACH, MUSOMA

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.