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Published: August 30th 2007
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Shija works closely with Geofrey, a former Benedictine Monk, who is now focused on supporting blind people in Tanzania, beginning in Arusha. Shija took me on my first Dala Dala ride to the Blind Center Geofrey has developed. Dala Dalas (their version of busses) . . . They are minivans CRAMMED with people in it. There is a driver and a conductor. The conductor rides standing up and usually has his head stuck out the window searching for customers. They are marked by a striped color as to which direction they will head (where I work and live is the Green Dala Dala). They pull over and will ALWAYS have more room for people. And if two Dala Dalas show up at once, which happened to Shija and I this day, look out. They will argue back and forth as to who will get the passenger. Thank god for Shija because being my first time it was much more intimidating than getting on the bus in San Francisco for the first time I’ll tell you that. Once you’re on, I don’t know how he does it, but the conductor remembers who has paid and who hasn’t. To ask you to pay,
Karolyn
Outside of one of the community women's meetings. whether you speak Swahili or not, he shakes a handful of coins at you. I remember being in China with my friend Steve getting out of an elevator and he asked me if I felt like I was being stared at all the time. Multiply that feeling by 10 and that is what being a Mzungu (white foreigner) squeezed in a Dala Dala feels like.
BCB (Best Center for the Blind)
I wish I took my camera this day so you could see what I’m about to describe. When you’re done reading, just close your eyes for a minute and think about living this way. The blind center is a strip of 17 rooms, each about 4 feet x 6 feet and 4 outhouses to be shared by everyone. There is no electricity, no running water. There are about 25 blind people and their families living at this facility. So in one room there can be 2 - 4 people living there.
When we arrived, another NGO, Global Services, was giving a four day AIDS education to the group, culminating with them all being tested for the virus on the last day. Geofrey brought me into one of
Upendo Foundating Office
My office in downtown Moivaro. There are 3 other rooms this size with businesses and a couple more across the street. That's it. the rooms and introduced me to Margaret who was in her “home” cooking (making tea) for her husband. The 4 x 6 room had no windows and was dark with the exception of the door being opened. To the right she had a small pot sitting on top of another pot with some coals. On top of the tea she was cooking was a standard size dinner plate. In the rest of her room there were three plastic jugs (think 2 gallon drinking water containers). She offered me one to sit on when she welcomed me into her home. The only other thing in her room was a clothes hanging wire. I didn’t ask but I’m assuming that is to hang her clothes when she washes them as she has no other clothes except for the ones on her body so she would be naked when she did her wash. She has no blanket, no pillow, no bed, nothing to sit on. Her room makes a jail cell look like the Four Seasons.
Although it sounds meager, realize that before this center they were most likely living on the streets. Now they have shelter and now that Geofrey has
Inside our Office
All those complaining about their cube right now . . . stop. established a formal organization, he will be able to raise funds to develop a proper center where they will have better living conditions, an area for organic farming, communal cooking, and bring organizations in to train the blind in skills and to educate them so they can begin to generate income for themselves. These are all long term goals and of course need the help of funds and volunteers.
Upendo Foundation Week 2
Today Upendo Foundation received another volunteer, Karolyn from NY. It’s so great to have another person to talk with from an outsiders perspective. She is here for two weeks which is the same amount of time I have left.
After Karolyn got settled in, an older man and girl came into the office to ask what Upendo is all about. As Shija explained to them the purpose of the foundation, to help the community, we come to find out that this older man is not the girl’s father, but just a man from the village she asked to come into the office with her because she was too shy to come in by herself. Tumaini, the girl, is 17. She lives in the village with
Upendo Office
Can't wait for cushions again! her aunt, her mother works in a nearby village farming and her father died in 1999. Tumaini has finished Primary Standard 7 school (8th grade), but was not able to go further because of funds. She has not been to school since 2003, speaks almost no English, but she wants to become a doctor. She came into our office to ask for help.
Shija has registered all the orphans in the village so I said we should add her to the registration as she is still a minor and wants to go to school. He agreed so with the help of my phrase book, the keyboard on the laptop and some gestures, I was able to get most of her information. My favorite part of this process was when I asked her how old she was and she wrote down her birth date. So I then wrote down my birth date (people seem shocked by my age here . . . it may be because I’m not married, but I prefer to think it is because I look so much younger than I am). When I finished writing my birth year she blurted out with big surprised eyes, “I
Shija in the Office
Upendo Foundation. There is a tailor who also works outside in the afternoons and leaves her sewing maching in our office at night. am so busy!” I realized she meant “I am so surprised” but I didn’t have the heart to correct her because I know how much it took for her to say something in English. That moment left a smile on my face all day.
There’s something about Tumaini that is special. I can see it in her eyes. Any girl who has enough guts to ask a stranger to accompany her into an office to ask questions, to want to commit to going to school for so many years to be a doctor to help her community and knowing how hard she’ll have to work since she hasn’t gone to school for a while, that is someone I want help find support.
Later in the week I did some research on what it would take for Tumaini to become a doctor. Private secondary school, inclusive of all expenses, would cost about 900,000 Shillings, or about $750. After Secondary School she will need to attend University, which would cost about $3,000 per year. Although this is a rough estimate, think about it this way, for approximately $15,000 - $20,000, spread over 10 years, another doctor can be added to
a country that desperately needs them. $20,000 is also the price many people in the United States pay to send their children to private preschool for just one year.
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Goose Roos
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A new Doctor
Are you suggesting that a trust be formed to send Tumani to school? Seems like it would be small potatoes especially if all of us on this blog list chipped in just a little bit of bucks on an annual basis...something at least to think about.