Blogs from Chaska, Minnesota, United States, North America

The ETI Karagwe Team 2016 has been back in the U.S. for the past three weeks. We've had time to reflect on the trip, which as usual, was eventful, productive and downright fun. We were ‘gone’ January 21 – 31 and traveled for the purpose of getting progress reports on Karagwe University College and starting the baseline data collection so in future years we can measure KARUCO's impact on local economies and on the social roles of women. WATER Many of you already saw photos that showed the water harvesting system designed by the ETI Team 2015 (thank you Christopher and John) - pipes from each building on the KARUCO campus and (4) 200,000 liter (53,000 gal) water storage tanks. You probably also saw the photo of the water from the well that was drilled in ... read more

Freedom is important. And the links between poverty and lack of freedom are well known. For example, it is difficult to feel free when your family is hungry, needs water or medicine and your entire waking hours are spent getting these things. For many of you reading this from a chair in the developed world, this is probably an unknown. However, this is the day-to-day, moment-by-moment lack of freedom among the families of subsistence farmers in Karagwe, Tanzania. Our Tanzanian partner – Dr. Benson K. Bagonza – and his management team are changing that. Dr. Bagonza, Bishop, Karagwe Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania and KARUCO Founder – has called for a vanguard approach to “development”. In fact, Dr. Bagonza challenges the use of the word development and instead, outlines a crosscutting plan using ... read more

Hello everyone... Sherry and I with Dan and Jane Revsbech will be traveling to Italy September 16 to the 28th. I am testing our travel blog site to make sure it still works. We will be sending out blogs from our trip and pictures from our visit. We found the site a good way to capture our trip and also keep our families updated. If you would like us to remove you from the site, send us response and we will take care of it. Also,if you have a different email you would like us to use, let us know as well. Please send back a confirmation of receipt of this email to confirm we have the correct email. If we do not hear back, we will assume the email is gone. Thanks Doug & Sherry ... read more

In between my assignments from Oklahoma to Southern California. I made my way back up to Minnesota via 35. It was a good visit with the family and seeing my nephews is always a pleasure. While there, I took the boys to pick out pumpkins. I also manage to make my way to GameStop and buy video games (it's what aunts do). While I was there, I also made my way to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum which is by the University of Minnesota. The Twin Cities did not appear to have "Botanical Garden" but this will do. Though growing up in Minnesota, this was my first time here and I thought it was just beautiful. Nice layout but not very handicap friendly because of the space (hills, paths, bridges). But it was so big that you ... read more

Getting our blog set up for our trip, second entry.... read more