These past few weeks have been so, so busy (which I think is a good sign...it means we're being really productive!) but I just wanted to take a second to tell you all about an AMAZING project I've started working. The albino population here in Tanzania is very vulnerable. Witchdoctors believe that they are magical and albino body parts and blood can be sold for incredible amounts of money. Because of that, midwives kill albino babies, tell the parents that the body has disappeared, and sell the bodies. It's terrible and tragic and there are so many stories I could tell you all, but I just don't have time! Anyways, I just wanted to tell you a quick something about Mama Martha. I'm in the process of writing up her whole story, so that will be up in the near future, but until then here's a little bit about what we're planning to do to help her organization!
So Mama Martha is albino and had an incredibly tragic childhood. She now works as a social worker and heads an organization called Peacemakers. Since albinos lack pigment in their skin to protect them from UV rays, many end up developing severe skin cancer. The Moshi Christian Medical Center provides free checkups and any cancer removal needed twice a year for members of the Peacemaker organization. Martha uses her own paycheck to provide housing, transportation to and from the clinic, and food for anyone that needs it. She also provides education for needy albino children, rescues those that are being abused by their families or hunted by witchdoctors, and talks to the community about albinism and its stigma in Eastern Africa. She's also trying to build a school for the at-risk children to attend with other African children in the community.
We're helping her find a way to fund her charitable work so that she can use her paycheck to help her own family. We're also trying to help her find a way to get free eye checkups and glasses since almost all albinos have eye problems. This would help albino students that are being sent to blind schools actually function in a real school.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Pictures!
...I can finally add pictures on flickr! They still won't upload to my blog, but you can check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/47182392@N08/ Some of them are really blurry, but at least you can get a feel for what my summer is looking like! I'll get pictures up soon of our projects as some of them are finishing so you can see our progress!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Busy Week!
This past week has been amazing! We went to Lake Diluti on Saturday...it's in a volcano crater that's 700 meters deep and just 10 minutes away from our house. We saw 6-ft long monitor lizards, lots of monkeys, awesome plants and flowers, and some really gross bugs. It was nice to get away from the city! We also got to see the first American football game played on the continent of Africa. It was an Iowa team against a team from Mexico - who knew Mexico had an American Football team. It was pretty hilarious.
We also finally got an appointment with the regional medical commander and after an hour of listening to him tell us why he wasn't interested in students helping in his hospitals, Tyler convinced him to set up a meeting with us for next week with a bunch of doctors. I can't wait to start something there - it's such a needy place, but I think we'll be able to do some amazing work!
After that, Tyler, Lauren, and I visited with Macao - an HIV prevention group among a community of Maasai that live out past the Serengeti. Their work is awesome and really challenging trying to teach safe sex among people that are at high risk for getting HIV – they practice polygamy, female genital mutilation, and widow inheritance and don’t normally use modern medicine or contraceptive devices. We’re hoping to go out with them on one of their teaching trips to see what their biggest needs are and how receptive the people are to foreigners teaching them. If they will listen to us, Lauren, Elizabeth, and I hope to develop a better, more culturally appropriate teaching program for them. Many of them can't ready so we'll have to get creative (maybe I'm not very good for this project afterall..) It's pretty far away though so we might save our budget for a different project nearby.
We also started working on the pigpen this week - cutting down banana trees and leveling out the ground for a foundation in the rain. Yes, I got to use a shovel AND machete AND will be mixing cement next week. Legit. (And yes, in the two days we've worked there, I've been the only one to fall in the cow poop and in the mud pit. Whatever, it happens, we weren't all blessed with balance or hand-eye coordination.)
Yesterday I got to spend the day at Step-by-Step, Margaret's school for developmentally disabled children and young adults. I worked mostly with the autistic kids. Half of the students can't talk so we're developing graphic communication books for them to communicate with each other. I shouldn't have favorites, but I totally do. His name is Baracka, which means blessing. Margaret found him a few weeks ago I guess – she said he looked like an old man in a baby’s body because his family doesn’t have enough money to feed him. He’s 4 years old, but looks like a 2 year old. Not only has he been severely malnourished his whole life, but he also is HIV+. He has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Seriously though, it takes up half his face and he has beautiful, white teeth and sparkly eyes. He just loves everyone! Since he has been so sick, he hasn’t learned how to talk or play. So he goes to Step by Step and just smiles and hugs everyone. I loved eating lunch with him...when he eats, he stuffs his face – literally. He gets food all over the place. Anyways, I really, really love him and want to adopt him. Thoughts, Mom and Dad?
I've been eating more Tanzanian food - fried green bananas with avocado (they taste like french fries..SO GOOD!), chips mayai (like a french-fry omelette), ndizi stew (banana soup - probably one of the best things I've eaten here yet), and rice and beans and chipati. The food is starting to grow on me, even though it's almost completely vegetarian. The only thing I would pay any amount of money for is cheese... 2 more months!
In a few hours, I get to start packing because guess what tomorrow is? SAFARI TIME! I'm so excited! That was pretty much the last of my savings soo I guess from here on out, life won't be very exotic, but oh well. I promise I'm taking my camera and will figure out how to get pictures on this dang thing.
We also finally got an appointment with the regional medical commander and after an hour of listening to him tell us why he wasn't interested in students helping in his hospitals, Tyler convinced him to set up a meeting with us for next week with a bunch of doctors. I can't wait to start something there - it's such a needy place, but I think we'll be able to do some amazing work!
After that, Tyler, Lauren, and I visited with Macao - an HIV prevention group among a community of Maasai that live out past the Serengeti. Their work is awesome and really challenging trying to teach safe sex among people that are at high risk for getting HIV – they practice polygamy, female genital mutilation, and widow inheritance and don’t normally use modern medicine or contraceptive devices. We’re hoping to go out with them on one of their teaching trips to see what their biggest needs are and how receptive the people are to foreigners teaching them. If they will listen to us, Lauren, Elizabeth, and I hope to develop a better, more culturally appropriate teaching program for them. Many of them can't ready so we'll have to get creative (maybe I'm not very good for this project afterall..) It's pretty far away though so we might save our budget for a different project nearby.
We also started working on the pigpen this week - cutting down banana trees and leveling out the ground for a foundation in the rain. Yes, I got to use a shovel AND machete AND will be mixing cement next week. Legit. (And yes, in the two days we've worked there, I've been the only one to fall in the cow poop and in the mud pit. Whatever, it happens, we weren't all blessed with balance or hand-eye coordination.)
Yesterday I got to spend the day at Step-by-Step, Margaret's school for developmentally disabled children and young adults. I worked mostly with the autistic kids. Half of the students can't talk so we're developing graphic communication books for them to communicate with each other. I shouldn't have favorites, but I totally do. His name is Baracka, which means blessing. Margaret found him a few weeks ago I guess – she said he looked like an old man in a baby’s body because his family doesn’t have enough money to feed him. He’s 4 years old, but looks like a 2 year old. Not only has he been severely malnourished his whole life, but he also is HIV+. He has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Seriously though, it takes up half his face and he has beautiful, white teeth and sparkly eyes. He just loves everyone! Since he has been so sick, he hasn’t learned how to talk or play. So he goes to Step by Step and just smiles and hugs everyone. I loved eating lunch with him...when he eats, he stuffs his face – literally. He gets food all over the place. Anyways, I really, really love him and want to adopt him. Thoughts, Mom and Dad?
I've been eating more Tanzanian food - fried green bananas with avocado (they taste like french fries..SO GOOD!), chips mayai (like a french-fry omelette), ndizi stew (banana soup - probably one of the best things I've eaten here yet), and rice and beans and chipati. The food is starting to grow on me, even though it's almost completely vegetarian. The only thing I would pay any amount of money for is cheese... 2 more months!
In a few hours, I get to start packing because guess what tomorrow is? SAFARI TIME! I'm so excited! That was pretty much the last of my savings soo I guess from here on out, life won't be very exotic, but oh well. I promise I'm taking my camera and will figure out how to get pictures on this dang thing.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Suye Adventures (May 16)
Yesterday we started community profiling. We split into groups of 3 or 4 and went to our assigned communities (all within 20 minutes from here) and figured out what their local government, education system, irrigation/farming plans, economy, etc. are like. From this we can do a Needs Assessment to figure out which community would be best for an HIV campaign and a safe-stove project.
My group went to Suye. It was just Seth, Tanya, and I. Of course, none of us speak Swahili. We didn’t even know where Suye began so we walked around and asked anyone we could find that could understand our crazy sign language and random key words we were looking up in our dictionaries as we were trying to have conversation. It was pretty hilarious. After a while, we found a man that understood that we were trying to get to Suye.
He took us on this little trail up to the top of this hill and pointed over to the other side of the valley and said “Suye, Suye”. Between Suye and us was a really muddy 8-in wide trail with corn and peas growing on one side and a cliff on the other. It was practically a slip-and-slide. By the time we got to Suye, we were covered in mud and couldn’t stop laughing. I’m sure the natives that were standing at the top of the hill were pretty entertained. Crazy wazungu. To get to the middle of the city, we had to trespass through a few yards, avoid a scary looking Rottweiler, and convince a little boy that we weren’t as scary as we looked so that he would give us directions.
The whole village seemed really deserted compared to Kimandolu (where we live) but we found a huge Lutheran church and figured that we could probably find some people to talk to there. There were 3 men doing construction on the roof and one of them, William (an engineer from another village), spoke about 50 words of English – more than anyone we had found all day. He didn’t really understand us, so he took us to meet with Mama Nembra (the woman that ran the Lutheran church). She didn’t speak a single word of English.
We walked over to her house with William and none of us really knew what to do – she didn’t understand what we wanted and we didn’t know how to explain our selves any other way. After about 10 minutes of trying to communicate, we finally were able to ask her that we wanted to talk to someone that governed the village.
She told William to tell us to go to the Pentagon. The chairman (Mr. Mila) worked there. It all sounded really bizarre, but we hoped that he would speak a little bit more English than Mama Nembra and William. William had to go back to work, so Mama Nembra guided us back to the road that would take us to the Pentagon. Well it turns out that the Pentagon is an event center. I’m pretty sure Mr. Mila was the party chairman for the city, not the actual chairman…we asked if there was a market there and how many people lived in the village and the only answer we could get out of him was “Saturday and Sunday”. We were all trying not to laugh. It was pretty hilarious though.
After 10 minutes of that, we decided to walk around town and see what we could figure out just by observing. We ended up at a little restaurant to get sodas.
A group of African men invited us to eat with them. They shared their “African goat and chips” with us. I felt rude saying no, but was positive we were all going to get sick based on the amount of flies around the place. We all tried a piece, then kept them talking so that they didn’t realize that we weren’t actually sharing lunch with them. We got most of our community profile information from them, then they started asking us for phone numbers and told us we should go dancing with them soo we made up some excuses about appointments we had to get to and went back to the center of the village.
There was no way we could get back up that muddy hill to our village, so we decided to follow the road that went up another hill to the side and see where it took us. We hiked around for about 3 km and finally found the main road. It was so beautiful up there! We got some pictures of the village from up high and then found the dala-dala to get back to Arusha town and meet up with the big group.
So that was my first real adventure in Africa. Everyday is an adventure really, but it was fun to try to talk to the people and make up our own plan and figure everything out without a translator or a huge group that attracts crazy attention. People still think we’re psycho by the amount of mud we attract by the end of the day. The African women walk the muddy trails with 50 pounds of bananas on their head, a child on their back, another in their arms, and flip flops that are barely held together and they don’t even get their toes dirty. That’s talent right there. I can’t even walk to the main road without falling. Thank goodness for wipes!
My group went to Suye. It was just Seth, Tanya, and I. Of course, none of us speak Swahili. We didn’t even know where Suye began so we walked around and asked anyone we could find that could understand our crazy sign language and random key words we were looking up in our dictionaries as we were trying to have conversation. It was pretty hilarious. After a while, we found a man that understood that we were trying to get to Suye.
He took us on this little trail up to the top of this hill and pointed over to the other side of the valley and said “Suye, Suye”. Between Suye and us was a really muddy 8-in wide trail with corn and peas growing on one side and a cliff on the other. It was practically a slip-and-slide. By the time we got to Suye, we were covered in mud and couldn’t stop laughing. I’m sure the natives that were standing at the top of the hill were pretty entertained. Crazy wazungu. To get to the middle of the city, we had to trespass through a few yards, avoid a scary looking Rottweiler, and convince a little boy that we weren’t as scary as we looked so that he would give us directions.
The whole village seemed really deserted compared to Kimandolu (where we live) but we found a huge Lutheran church and figured that we could probably find some people to talk to there. There were 3 men doing construction on the roof and one of them, William (an engineer from another village), spoke about 50 words of English – more than anyone we had found all day. He didn’t really understand us, so he took us to meet with Mama Nembra (the woman that ran the Lutheran church). She didn’t speak a single word of English.
We walked over to her house with William and none of us really knew what to do – she didn’t understand what we wanted and we didn’t know how to explain our selves any other way. After about 10 minutes of trying to communicate, we finally were able to ask her that we wanted to talk to someone that governed the village.
She told William to tell us to go to the Pentagon. The chairman (Mr. Mila) worked there. It all sounded really bizarre, but we hoped that he would speak a little bit more English than Mama Nembra and William. William had to go back to work, so Mama Nembra guided us back to the road that would take us to the Pentagon. Well it turns out that the Pentagon is an event center. I’m pretty sure Mr. Mila was the party chairman for the city, not the actual chairman…we asked if there was a market there and how many people lived in the village and the only answer we could get out of him was “Saturday and Sunday”. We were all trying not to laugh. It was pretty hilarious though.
After 10 minutes of that, we decided to walk around town and see what we could figure out just by observing. We ended up at a little restaurant to get sodas.
A group of African men invited us to eat with them. They shared their “African goat and chips” with us. I felt rude saying no, but was positive we were all going to get sick based on the amount of flies around the place. We all tried a piece, then kept them talking so that they didn’t realize that we weren’t actually sharing lunch with them. We got most of our community profile information from them, then they started asking us for phone numbers and told us we should go dancing with them soo we made up some excuses about appointments we had to get to and went back to the center of the village.
There was no way we could get back up that muddy hill to our village, so we decided to follow the road that went up another hill to the side and see where it took us. We hiked around for about 3 km and finally found the main road. It was so beautiful up there! We got some pictures of the village from up high and then found the dala-dala to get back to Arusha town and meet up with the big group.
So that was my first real adventure in Africa. Everyday is an adventure really, but it was fun to try to talk to the people and make up our own plan and figure everything out without a translator or a huge group that attracts crazy attention. People still think we’re psycho by the amount of mud we attract by the end of the day. The African women walk the muddy trails with 50 pounds of bananas on their head, a child on their back, another in their arms, and flip flops that are barely held together and they don’t even get their toes dirty. That’s talent right there. I can’t even walk to the main road without falling. Thank goodness for wipes!
Water or Lights?
Sometimes our electricity goes out. I’ve learned to be patient. Sometimes our water runs out. Apparently the city only provides us with water 3 times a week and if we use up all our water, we just have to wait till it comes back on again. Sooo when the power and water are out at the same time…well…lets just say candles are great, but 16 girls that aren’t allowed to use the bathroom whenever they feel like it + dishes piling up for 2 days…we miss our water.
What We're Up To...
We had a meeting on our plans for the rest of the semester. It was about 4 hours long, but we have some AMAZING projects coming up soon! Since nothing is set in stone until next week, I'll just give a run-down of some of the things we're working on and what I'm specifically in charge of. As I continue to get to know people and learn about their stories, of course I will record them.
This week, we're working with an albino protective group (witchdoctors here buy albino babies to use in their medicines…it's terrible and people have started creating protective groups to keep these beautiful babies safe! It's awesome!), collecting community-specific HIV information to start a prevention program, micro-loans and personal finance classes for Mama Anna's HIV+ support group (ViCoBa), safe stoves in the community we're living in (our neighbors need some help with this), maternal health in Arusha, livestock investment generating projects (pig, chicken, and rabbit pens), vaccinations and hygiene projects in orphanages (like HEM where they don't have enough water to bathe, wash their hands, or brush their teeth on a regular basis), wheelchairs (hopefully we can partner with LDS Humanitarian), malaria prevention in Masai communities, classes at vocational training center (computer classes, finances, brick laying), job training and music/animal therapy for developmentally disabled, and a hand washing projects in the central market.
I know that's a lot - we're all working on lots of different things. I'm specifically working on getting vaccinations to HEM (the rural orphanage), malaria prevention among the Masai (I get to meet with the village elders, how awesome is that?!), and investigate the wheelchair project. Most of the beggars downtown are missing toes and parts of their feet, but often are missing complete parts of their legs. There's one man that doesn't have any legs. He wears shoes on his hands and crawls around. I can't believe how hard that would be. This project is for him. I know this town has very little wheelchair accessibility, but I think a wheelchair would give someone like that so much freedom to at least have a job. Anyways, I know I get my hopes up about little things, so who knows what will happen, but between the 20 of us, some of these projects ARE going to happen! I'm also going to work really closely with the women's empowerment projects (business and self-worth classes) and the Step-By-Step project. It's going to be kind of like UNIDOS - I hope. I think this week will be kind of tedious and research-heavy, but awesome too!
This week, we're working with an albino protective group (witchdoctors here buy albino babies to use in their medicines…it's terrible and people have started creating protective groups to keep these beautiful babies safe! It's awesome!), collecting community-specific HIV information to start a prevention program, micro-loans and personal finance classes for Mama Anna's HIV+ support group (ViCoBa), safe stoves in the community we're living in (our neighbors need some help with this), maternal health in Arusha, livestock investment generating projects (pig, chicken, and rabbit pens), vaccinations and hygiene projects in orphanages (like HEM where they don't have enough water to bathe, wash their hands, or brush their teeth on a regular basis), wheelchairs (hopefully we can partner with LDS Humanitarian), malaria prevention in Masai communities, classes at vocational training center (computer classes, finances, brick laying), job training and music/animal therapy for developmentally disabled, and a hand washing projects in the central market.
I know that's a lot - we're all working on lots of different things. I'm specifically working on getting vaccinations to HEM (the rural orphanage), malaria prevention among the Masai (I get to meet with the village elders, how awesome is that?!), and investigate the wheelchair project. Most of the beggars downtown are missing toes and parts of their feet, but often are missing complete parts of their legs. There's one man that doesn't have any legs. He wears shoes on his hands and crawls around. I can't believe how hard that would be. This project is for him. I know this town has very little wheelchair accessibility, but I think a wheelchair would give someone like that so much freedom to at least have a job. Anyways, I know I get my hopes up about little things, so who knows what will happen, but between the 20 of us, some of these projects ARE going to happen! I'm also going to work really closely with the women's empowerment projects (business and self-worth classes) and the Step-By-Step project. It's going to be kind of like UNIDOS - I hope. I think this week will be kind of tedious and research-heavy, but awesome too!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Mama Anna
Jambo! I'm in Tanzania and finally able to access a computer! The power here only works about half the time and the internet is even less. I'm starting to pick up some Swahili and my English has gone completely downhill haha I'm starting to sound like the vendors. We're living in a house in a jungle village outside of Arusha. We're at the base of Mt. Meru and about an hour away from Mount Kilimanjaro. I've only seen the base because it's rainy season so it's always covered in clouds. I've heard it's incredible though! In about a month we should be able to have a clearer view. I've never been anywhere more beautiful in my life - or more muddy haha this place is great though. I don't have enough time to go into details but I'll type it up at home tomorrow and put it on here as soon as I have internet access again. This is the story of one of the women we have met with. These people are AMAZING!
Momma Anna (May 10)
Today we visited the home of Momma Anna. She is partners with Ernest and has turned her home into an orphanage for neighbor kids whose parents have died from AIDS or are too poor to raise their family (like the Casa Hogars in Mexico). The kids all receive an education (mostly English classes) at her home give by volunteers until they enter public primary school. Some of the kids she originally worked with are even in secondary school and her own children are in college – which is pretty amazing for this country.
This is her story:
In 2003 she was pregnant with her last baby. She went into the clinic for a checkup and they did a routine HIV test. She found out she was positive for the disease. She came home and told her husband, who said that it was impossible. He refused to go to the hospital to get checked. She had her baby. She listened to BBC radio a lot and had heard of a way to make a sort of formula from soybeans instead of breastfeeding the baby. She did this for 9 months to avoid transmitting the disease and spent hours soaking the soybeans all night, ground them by hand into a pulp, making a milk from it, letting it sit for a few more hours, then give it to the baby.
Her birthday that year (April 6, 2004) was a “happy morning of celebration and sad night because my husband dies”. He got really sick with malaria, but was too “shy” (scared and ashamed) to visit the doctor. As he got more and more sick, he finally let her take him to a village clinic. The doctors there couldn’t do much for him and he was suffocating. Finally, he let her take him to the real hospital to run tests. They put him on oxygen and he died a few hours later.
Two days later, she buried her husband. They were living in a rented house in a nearby village and had been working on building their own that was large enough for all their children. As she returned home with her children, her in-laws arrived and started counting everything she owned. She asked why they were doing this and they said they wanted to record how much was in her house so that she didn’t try to steal and sell any of her son’s inheritance. The preacher came over and she started to cry. He asked them if real Christians would treat someone who just lost her husband like that. They left and never came back. She hasn’t talked to them since.
From then on, it was just Anna and her children. The town knew she was HIV+ and had labeled her as a dead woman. No one was willing to help and she desperately needed money to finish and move into her half-finished home. She told her own siblings that she wanted to go to work. Her husband had always worked and she took care of the family at home. They convinced her that she couldn’t leave her children at home to find a job – someone they knew had done that and when she returned home, the neighbors had put her 3-month old in a hot oven to punish her for being a bad mom.
Anna went to a business man who was the boss of one of her relatives and asked if there was any way he could get any sort of donations to help her finish her home. He came over to see the property. All that was finished were the walls, so he made a list of everything that was needed to complete the project, called around for 2 weeks, and got enough donations to cover the million shillings needed to do the work that was left.
Anna moved into the new home and put cardboard over the windows (which were just open squares – no glass), and slept with her children on the dirt floor. Over time, she decided that she wanted to help educate those who couldn’t afford it. She now has 12 preschool children in her care, plus a few more older children. She was so proud of her work – and rightfully so. She is teaching these kids to accept all types of people – HIV or not, and to value the importance of getting all the education they can. Volunteers cycle through with the Tanzania Volunteer Placement Program. They come in every morning to teach the preschoolers.
Her kitchen is just a bunch of pots on the floor – they have to be washed outside and they cook outside using a propane tank and burner, or coal – depending on the weather. The bathroom plumbing is bad so it’s being used as storage room and there are latrines in the backyard instead. The kids share mattresses on bunk beds in two small rooms and Momma Anna has her own bed. I’m pretty sure it’s the only she owns that’s her own. The front room is used as a small schoolroom. Her yard is muddy and crisscrossed with clotheslines.
They are supported by small income projects (raising and selling pigs, goats and hens, eggs and milk), foreign donations, and scholarships for the children to attend higher school.
Not only has she given everything to run this orphanage/school (called Bose House), but Anna also works with an HIV+ microfinancing group. The small loans provide help for small business owners that won’t be able to get a job because of their health status. They also have a chance to invest in health and education insurance. After 3 months of investing 1000-5000 shillings each week, the members of this program are allowed to take out a loan of up to 3 times the amount of money they have invested. Everyone involved takes a turn helping to meet the physical needs of those who are too sick to make it to the meetings. These people are now able to support their families because of Anna and Ernest’s work.
I've been able to meet so many amazing people...I can't wait to get started on our projects! A lot will be happening in the next week so I'll write up more stories and get some pictures on here soon.
Momma Anna (May 10)
Today we visited the home of Momma Anna. She is partners with Ernest and has turned her home into an orphanage for neighbor kids whose parents have died from AIDS or are too poor to raise their family (like the Casa Hogars in Mexico). The kids all receive an education (mostly English classes) at her home give by volunteers until they enter public primary school. Some of the kids she originally worked with are even in secondary school and her own children are in college – which is pretty amazing for this country.
This is her story:
In 2003 she was pregnant with her last baby. She went into the clinic for a checkup and they did a routine HIV test. She found out she was positive for the disease. She came home and told her husband, who said that it was impossible. He refused to go to the hospital to get checked. She had her baby. She listened to BBC radio a lot and had heard of a way to make a sort of formula from soybeans instead of breastfeeding the baby. She did this for 9 months to avoid transmitting the disease and spent hours soaking the soybeans all night, ground them by hand into a pulp, making a milk from it, letting it sit for a few more hours, then give it to the baby.
Her birthday that year (April 6, 2004) was a “happy morning of celebration and sad night because my husband dies”. He got really sick with malaria, but was too “shy” (scared and ashamed) to visit the doctor. As he got more and more sick, he finally let her take him to a village clinic. The doctors there couldn’t do much for him and he was suffocating. Finally, he let her take him to the real hospital to run tests. They put him on oxygen and he died a few hours later.
Two days later, she buried her husband. They were living in a rented house in a nearby village and had been working on building their own that was large enough for all their children. As she returned home with her children, her in-laws arrived and started counting everything she owned. She asked why they were doing this and they said they wanted to record how much was in her house so that she didn’t try to steal and sell any of her son’s inheritance. The preacher came over and she started to cry. He asked them if real Christians would treat someone who just lost her husband like that. They left and never came back. She hasn’t talked to them since.
From then on, it was just Anna and her children. The town knew she was HIV+ and had labeled her as a dead woman. No one was willing to help and she desperately needed money to finish and move into her half-finished home. She told her own siblings that she wanted to go to work. Her husband had always worked and she took care of the family at home. They convinced her that she couldn’t leave her children at home to find a job – someone they knew had done that and when she returned home, the neighbors had put her 3-month old in a hot oven to punish her for being a bad mom.
Anna went to a business man who was the boss of one of her relatives and asked if there was any way he could get any sort of donations to help her finish her home. He came over to see the property. All that was finished were the walls, so he made a list of everything that was needed to complete the project, called around for 2 weeks, and got enough donations to cover the million shillings needed to do the work that was left.
Anna moved into the new home and put cardboard over the windows (which were just open squares – no glass), and slept with her children on the dirt floor. Over time, she decided that she wanted to help educate those who couldn’t afford it. She now has 12 preschool children in her care, plus a few more older children. She was so proud of her work – and rightfully so. She is teaching these kids to accept all types of people – HIV or not, and to value the importance of getting all the education they can. Volunteers cycle through with the Tanzania Volunteer Placement Program. They come in every morning to teach the preschoolers.
Her kitchen is just a bunch of pots on the floor – they have to be washed outside and they cook outside using a propane tank and burner, or coal – depending on the weather. The bathroom plumbing is bad so it’s being used as storage room and there are latrines in the backyard instead. The kids share mattresses on bunk beds in two small rooms and Momma Anna has her own bed. I’m pretty sure it’s the only she owns that’s her own. The front room is used as a small schoolroom. Her yard is muddy and crisscrossed with clotheslines.
They are supported by small income projects (raising and selling pigs, goats and hens, eggs and milk), foreign donations, and scholarships for the children to attend higher school.
Not only has she given everything to run this orphanage/school (called Bose House), but Anna also works with an HIV+ microfinancing group. The small loans provide help for small business owners that won’t be able to get a job because of their health status. They also have a chance to invest in health and education insurance. After 3 months of investing 1000-5000 shillings each week, the members of this program are allowed to take out a loan of up to 3 times the amount of money they have invested. Everyone involved takes a turn helping to meet the physical needs of those who are too sick to make it to the meetings. These people are now able to support their families because of Anna and Ernest’s work.
I've been able to meet so many amazing people...I can't wait to get started on our projects! A lot will be happening in the next week so I'll write up more stories and get some pictures on here soon.
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