He who relies on his relative’s property dies poor - Swahili proverb

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After a surprisingly comfortable 8 hour bus journey from Dar, I reached Moshi to the warm welcome, embraces and laughter of ‘Mama Veronica’ the Executive Director of KINSHAI - the NGO who had agreed to take me on.

I couldn’t have had a warmer welcome and it didn’t just stop at the bus station. From Miko the security guard at the hostel, to the local shop owner, everyone is overwhelmingly friendly. Smiles, hugs and laughter abound and any encounter involves a lengthy exchange of ‘how are yous?’, and hand clasping and hi fives and hugging. Each morning in the office I am welcomed with sugary tea and cakes and chappatis (though not quite the Indin version I am used to). “I see I will get fat here” I laughed on my first morning. “What?” exclaimed Mrs Donato in horror (who told me to remember her name by thinking of her as a donut) “You don’t want to get fat?”. Her face was aghast.

So fending off food and hugs as much as I can (I’m losing) I’ve settled to try and find out as much as possible about KINSHAI. It’s a battle I’m also losing and people never seem to be around whenever I’m here. However what I have discovered is that Kinshai co-ordinates the Kilimanjaro NGO cluster. In an area of 1.5 million people it organizes over 60 FBOs (Faith based organizations), CBO (community based organizations) and NGOs to focus on HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS affects everyone in Tanzania. An estimated 7% of the adult population are positive. Businesses suffer not just from losing staff to the disease, but from people taking time off to look after sick relatives or attend funerals. Open coffins for purchase line the road to the hospital. A whole generation of children is growing up without parents turning them into breadwinners at an early age or leaving them to be cared for by elderly relatives.

One of the projects that ‘Babu’ (grandfather) Meela - the eldest member of staff at Kinshai - is in charge of is educating village elders on how best to care for the AIDS orphans. There are over 500 000 of them in the region.

Other projects the group takes on include:

• testing and counseling in the offices in Moshi
  
• Family planning education
  
• Hygienic breast feeding
  
• Care of HIV positive babies
  
• Adolescent health and condom negotiations
  
• Education and support for people living with AIDS (here known as PLWA)
  
• Awareness of sexual violence issues and support for victims
  

It’s a busy group staffed only by 6 full-timers and a bunch of volounteers. They have few resources and very little funding despite the Tanzanian government’s legislation forcing all businesses to have an HIV awareness budget.

I’m still figuring out what exactly I can do here, but have started collating material for the public information centre and will soon set to work on a newsletter. Most of the material that already existed were ‘newsletters’ from 1998 and governmental reports. Not ideal reading material for the visitors to the centre.

Moshi is a great place to be and I think I’m going to like it here. It seems to have a good balance of local and wazungu culture (ie: both seedy local bars serving Pombe (local brews), East African music, huge chunks of meat, hi-fives and pool tables as well as western style wine bars overlooking Mount Kilimanjaro). I have moved into the YMCA which feels very backpacker and studenty (I scowl at most people so as to avoid conversation) but it has the benefit of a 25m swimming pool with views over the majestic mountain. I can walk from one side of town to the other in half an hour and have found a great local kebab shop that shows the same crap Cindy Crawford movie on a big screen in the street at 7.30pm every night and serves a great dinner for 30p. It’s not quite Zanzibar International Film Festival, but it’s keeping me entertained.

Kwaherini
sx

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