Leroy's Art Blog

Monday, Aug 8

We are working with Maria to see if we can move up our flight to Zanzibar and find accommodations there, since my school is closed. The stumbling block is the flight, because the airline office is not open today since it is NaneNane day. But being here in Mwanza it has been good to have email contact with family in the US and business in China.

The two safari wagons were still ours for the day, so we gathered the other PC Volunteers, Kim, Kathleen, Kara, Ryan, and Ashley, a friend from Nairobi who is working with refugees for the UNHCR. Somehow, Ashley had found and has been reading my blog and the joke was that she know more about me and what I’ve been doing that Ryan does, living a mile away. Kim leaves for Dar es Salaam to end her service, and Kara should hear tomorrow about whether the Peace Corps feels she should end her service for safety reasons, because of the arson at her school.

We found the big empty field where they are holding a NaneNane festival near Igoma, and I gotta say I was very impressed. There was a large crowd there, and many booths featuring agricultural methods and small business ideas and appropriate technology such as effective foot-operated pumps for irrigation. It really did look like a small rural county fair, with even a few cows and goats on display. There were other displays showing cotton plants with various kinds of diseases and insect infestations with information on how to combat them. Still others demonstrated various plants that can be sown along with corn to prevent exhausting the soil nutrients, or how to easily sun-dry fruits, vegetables and fish.

THIS is the kind of thing that is SO important for Tanzania, and that I thought was mostly missing. I wonder who or what group it was that was the prime motivator in organizing the event. It would be a great project for some PC Volunteers to assist.

I asked the gregarious man at the booth of the Agricultural University why Tanzania has eliminated Agriculture and Agricultural Science from the school curriculum in the secondary schools. He just threw up his hands and said that changes occur repeatedly, it is all political, elections are coming up before long, and hopefully things will change again.

Then we left the Fair and went to the Bujora Museum for a very dry, slow and boring presentation of artifacts from the Sukuma people. The Sukuma is the largest tribe in Tanzania and centers around the Mwanza region. There are actually some interesting things there, but there were no informative written descriptions and our guide just didn’t cut it. But the meal they prepared for us was really good. After that there was a fascinating program of native dancing. That ended with the group dancing around two fat, very long pythons. The kids were really excited by that, and Kim just jumped up and stood there for the whole dance, cringing with her hands up to her face.

Finally we just sat around talking for another hour or so, then had our drivers take us back to the hotel. We asked them to ferry the Volunteers back to the Lake Hotel and out to Ryan’s site in Nyegezi, and so the safari with lorries and guides has ended.

Whenever we stop somewhere, the boys get out the frizbee and throw it around. They are doing a great job of entertaining themselves. the girls are playing games with each other too, even if Alice gets a little pouty now and then. Alice has collected 79 soda bottle caps, and they are doing everything with them – using them like legos, dominos, making patterns...

Tomorrow is rather unplanned. I want to go to Bugando Hospital with Diane to arrange the time for her to give a presentation, then maybe try to rent a daladala for the day. Then we’ll come back to the Hotel to pick up the group and head out to an orphanage, the Starehe Home for Children, and Nsumba. Along the line we should hear from Maria about the Zanzibar flight, and from Ryan about maybe having Ellen give an art workshop and Matt give a talk on journalism to students at Nganza, the school down the road from Nsumba that has NOT rioted or burned down.

August 9, Tuesday

Good news – Maria says she was able to confirm our flights to Zanzibar on the 11^th. So we will have two extra days on the Spice Island, at the expense of exploring Mwanza more fully. But since Nsumba is in such turmoil, this is no real loss.

As the day began, Diane and I went to Bugando Hospital to see if we could find Dr. Dass, to reschedule her pediatrics presentation there. We stumbled around in the warren of dingy hospital halls until we found a promising office and, after some confused misdirection, were asked to come inside and Just Wait. When that became old, we pressed a bit more, and learned that he would be there in the afternoon. That is a long time to wait, so we managed to get his phone number to set up her appointment. Yes, she can come tomorrow at 10, but probably not give a presentation because the interns are studying for a test. But maybe some will be there for a discussion, so...

Back to the hotel where the gang was finishing breakfast. We took taxis out to an orphanage, the Starehe Home for Children, near Nsumba. This is the place where I had thought Myrna might assist, if she had come to Africa as planned last December. We werre met there by Tini, a young energetic German-American blond, who has been volunteering there a few months every year and is now raising money to build a pre-school and primary school on the Starehe grounds. Starehe accepts abandoned children who are referred from social service NGOs, infants up to the time when they complete school and are on their own, providing scholorships for the most promising so they can obtain a good education. They run a superb, amazing program, and are building a spectacular dormatory-education building, thanks to European donations. It is almost world-class, complete with parquet floors and adequate electrical outlets (placed close to the floor where children can reach them, but that is nit-picking), far outclassing any government educational institution I have seen here.

Most students were in school, so the children we met were all quite young. As soon as we approached, they ran to us to hold on, to be picked up, to be recognized. Beautiful children, any one of which would be a heart-tugging poster child for aid appeals. As it turns out, $20 a month is enough to “sponsor” a child – provide food, clothing and shelter, medical care and school fees. I have been wondering how I could continue to be involved in helping Tanzania in some small way after I leave, but don’t trust my school to use any donation wisely. Starehe will be the way to do that, and I look forward to getting more information about this sponsorship program from Tini.

Then to Nsumba, where we got a complete tour of the school. We were greeted very warmly, and of course we had to shake hands and make greetings with every person in the room. Shari kept saying that she wished her students could see it, as we looked at the brutal classrooms with the blackboards painted on the wall, the dormatory space – eight students to a room in double bunks with no chairs or study desks, and only one small cabinet for storage of personal belongings. Diane found that the infirmary stocked about four medications for stomach pain another for malaria, nothing for pain, headache and the more common US student complaints. There was a large jar for aspirin, but it was empty.

No school was in session, thanks to the food riot, but the teachers were all required to stay in the staff room because the police or Ministry of Education investigators might want to talk with them at any time.

My friends on the staff completely took over our schedule after that, determined to be with us, help us, guide us. It was beautiful and very personal, in the Tanzanian way, but changed our schedule. We were hanging around my home there for the rest of the day, with a seemingly endless stream of people arriving, greeting and shaking hands, Hodie beside herself playing with everyone and licking Alice in the face, to the consternation of the Tanzanians. We ordered food, which our hosts insisted we buy from the Duka by the road. This was a good idea, but so overwhelmed the Duka that the food was hours late in arriving and the kids were getting hungry and complaining. But we still managed to take a walk up the steep hill to the Retreat lookout for a spectacular view of the Lake and to see the sunset.

Paola and I got into a spat at the end of the day as the taxi our friends called for us arrived at about the same time that Alice decided that yes, she was hungry after all and would like some food now. Matt and I had a “discussion” over this later that moved from accusations to consideration of deeper issues, and may have helped us both in our family relationships. ‘Nuff said about that.

Tomorrow may be difficult. Because of the scheduling changes, too many of us are going in separate directions, and I have to spend time with Maria to sort out finances and flight tickets. Don’t quite know how to handle this, and also take care of planning for the kids during the day. Well, we’ll see.