Ruaha Trip to Mwagusi

We had a wonderful weekend at Mwagusi in Ruaha National Park. Tumaini allowed us to drive our car to the park along with Richard and Joan, Don and Babs who were here visiting with Arne (Tumaini's first provost) and Mary Blomquist, and Monica Betencourt who is teaching in the Law Master's program at Tumaini. This was the end of the dry season which is a great time to view wildlife in Ruaha because the grasses are short and animals collect near water sources. We drove into the park and stopped first at the bridge over the nearly dry Ruaha river where there was a concentration of hippos and crocs in a pool. Notice the croc almost submerged between the hippos.

We then drove through the park after asking directions at the airport. Things are not well marked and it is about a 40 minute drive to Mwagusi, especially since you are seeing wildlife all the time and want to stop for photos.

An elephant was at the entrance when we drove up and I encountered a bull elephant later on the path from our banda to the dining area. He was about 30 feet away when I took this picture and then he mock charged me sending me scrambling but fortunately he stopped after about 5 feet when he had made his point. It is an interesting feeling to have a bull elephant run at you from that close. This elephant is the aggressive one in camp and a good reminder that we are not in a zoo. They hang here because the camp is on a dry river bed where they can dig a couple feet down and find water.

We had a wonderful lunch and after a short rest in our banda went back for tea and cake before going on evening safari. We saw elephants everywhere and a nice pride of sleepy lions with a couple restless cubs that were feeding and then harassing the adults.

The special high lite for this trip came on the next day. We had heard a Cheetah had been seen nearby and when we went to the wide open area that the cheetah likes to hunt we saw her under a tree. We arrived near her at the same time as a troop of baboons and the biggest baboon aggressively chased her off. Fortunately for us she stopped to rest in the shade under another tree and we were able to spend 20 minutes watching her up close.

Cheetahs are not very strong hunters, like lions, and rely on chasing smaller game in open areas. The baboon did not want her near the young in the troop and was not at all afraid of her. That evening we visited a fresh cape buffalo kill but the lions were resting after having their fill.
The next day we went on a morning walk with the guide and saw a lot of tracks and birds. The hyena hang out near the kitchen some times and there were a bunch of white scat around because the major diet for hyena is scavenged bones from kills. We hear the hyena at night because they come around looking for food even though they do not leave food outside where we have dinners at night. Mwagusi has to go to great trouble to secure their compost area from hyenas and elephants.

Group leaving Mwagusi, Chris Fox, the owner is on the left and Adrian, the manager is on the right.We had a slow drive out of the park and saw a nice Greater Kudu which was in the open next to a giraffe. I like these large antelope with curved horns on the males.

We had one more adventure on the way out. We stopped by a croc and hippo viewing area at a pool in the river near the bridge. We were out of the car to see better and heard a growl from up the hill above us. There were three lions about 300 feet up the slope and we were making them nervous by walking around outside of the car. They are very used to cars but do not like people walking around. They must have been waiting for visitors to the pool that were tastier than us and we disturbed them. They retreated to the edge of the ridge and watched us. We returned to be near the car and did not stay long.

Kising'a Weekend Oct 14

We arrived in Kising’a at about 2pm on Friday afternoon and were immediately greeted by a lovely young woman who shook our hands and warmly said, “Karibu sana.” She then explained that she is a theology intern who will be in Kising’a for the next 9-10months and in particular will be serving the preaching point of Isele in anticipation of their being an independent parish in the future. Her name is Peweni (pronounced paywaynee) and she was with us, along with Pastor Wahali, all weekend long. She served as our interpreter, but also served as a guide and a wonderful teacher of Swahili and Hehe. I couldn’t help but wish that Pastor Jan and Intern Wendy were along to serve as colleagues and role models. I know that there would have been a wonderful connection.

We were served lunch first thing – the most delicious potatoes which were “boiled” whole in vegetable oil. Probably not so healthy, but, oh, they tasted so good! We also had fresh pineapple which we had brought along with us as a special treat for them, but I think that they served most of it to us.

Following lunch we went to check out the well. Dan said that a seal or gasket needs to be replaced so that the pump will work more efficiently. (It probably is working at about 40%.) Dan indicated that it is not a difficult thing to do nor is it expensive, but if it is used much more as it is, it will probably wear the pump out. During their inspection of the well, I met four teenage “girls” (probably around 15 or 16) who stated that they are in Preform 1 which is a level that the Vintons institute in their schools to help the students get a jump on learning English. One of the girls, named Anna, asked if I had a dictionary that I could give her. A fifth girl was in introduced as the head girl and her English was exceptionally clear as was the English of the other four. I explained that several dictionaries were left at the school a couple of years ago and should be available for use by them. As I write this, I wonder if they are still available for use or if they have mysteriously disappeared. (We did not see them when we visited the Kising’a secondary school, but they may have been locked away in a secure place. The Vinton Schools frequently do this when they are concerned about things disappearing. But locking things up make them less accessible for use as well.)

Following the inspection of the well, we headed up to the primary school to show it to Joan and Richard. Everywhere we went we had a group of young children tagging along behind us. Richard amused them with his camera, showing them the pictures of themselves as he took them. At that point we headed up to the dispensary and met the nurse who had retired at least a year ago, who was covering for the other two nurses who were either off for the weekend for a vacation; (likely, b/c it was a holiday weekend) or at a conference. She appeared to be quite busy, but took the time to greet us just the same.

We made a complete circle and saw a large semi in the middle of the main road with a huge caterpillar loaded on the back. Apparently the road to Ipalamwa is being improved at the present time. We arrived back at the house and it was rapidly becoming dark. Dan brought out his computer and put on the movie, “Finding Nemo.” Pastor Wihale asked, “Is this a cartooni?” The adults and children both seemed to enjoy it. Right after the point at which Nemo gets kidnapped, Dan switched the movie to one of the dvds in the BBC series, “Planet Earth.” Again, the adults and children both seemed to enjoy the video and at the point when the first 45 minutes segment was finished, it was again time to eat. Stephano said in Swahili, “After we eat movies again!” He looks much like his father and he, like his younger brother, always seems to have a runny nose. The other matter that concerns me is how small this little guy is. He is now five years old and appears to be no more than 2 ½ or 3! It is either because he is sick much of the time, or poor nutrition, or both. He has really great coordination and motor skills; he’s just very small.

Following breakfast on Saturday morning, the four of us drove with Pastor Wihale, Peweni, and two evangelists over to Kidimuka, one the preaching points. They have now outgrown their church and are in the process of building a new one. They have marked the boundaries of the structure and had started to bring big rocks to the dug-out boundaries of the future walls. They also had many bricks drying at the site. The four of us helped with hauled the big rocks over to the projected foundation site. I was feeling ever so proud of myself because I was able to help carry the boulders; then I looked over at Pastor Wihale and saw the mammoth size boulders he was carrying.

Many of the women greeted us in Hehe. They giggled when I responded to them in Hehe and they started to laugh again when we started hauling rocks. During this time we met a secondary student, Redson, who is a younger brother of Aid Kasenegala. Redson has just completed his Form 4 exams and up to this point had been attending Kising’a secondary school. I pulled him (not literally) out of the crowd, and gestured to the younger children who had gathered and suggested that he help them learn English, citing the fact that school for him must be a constant challenge, because he is not studying in his native tongue, that he might make their future studies a bit easier. The building site is situated on a hillside and overlooks a lovely valley of pine trees in various stages of growth. Prior to leaving this site the group sang to us in the loveliest harmony and we all prayed together. We asked for their prayers because of the drop in numbers in all of the mainline churches in the US.

After visiting the presently utilized parish, we then drove over to the grove of pine trees that they are partially using for the framing of this new church. Another beautiful area which is on the road to Ipalamwa, the trees are situated on a hillside that overlooks fields that are either being planted or are newly planted. Church Members had cut many logs and were in process of milling boards out of them. Everything is so green and beautiful.

We then visited the building site of the future sanctuary for the Madisi preaching point, (Madisi PP is where the pastor’s house is located). No progress has been made at this site since our last visit. Apparently they were told that the funds had been used up, so we will have to check with BegaKwaBega and LCP to get an update on this. After that we stopped at Kising'a Secondary School and met the new headmaster and a women from Idaho who will be teaching English for 4 months in Kising'a. There will be 30 new primary graduates from the church who will be attending preform english classes to prepare them for starting Secondary school in January.

That evening we had dinner at Enne’s house. When we arrived, we were greeted with big hugs and she then showed us the chickens, her ducks and cows. Enne’s animals are very well cared for and the chickens are thriving. She fed us a feast of chicken, avocadoes, rice, and vegetables. When we finished we watched the 8 o’clock news on her television which is solar powered. We then had a conversation about Tumaini, Enne’s daughter. Tumaini had contacted me via email and had inquired about funding assistance with her college tuition. She is in her second year in Dar in education. She has been a good student and therefore has an 80% government loan. I asked Enne if it is indeed true that her daughter could use some assistance and Enne replied, “yes.” I then explained to Tumaini my conditions for us to assist her: to complete the application through the BKB office and that I wanted to be more than a source of financial assistance to her daughter; that I wanted Tumaini to correspond with us regularly, to tell me about her studies and her concerns. That we would in turn share our lives and thoughts and concerns with her and that we could then keep each other in our prayers. I explained to Enne that I wanted her to know, because I wanted her blessing on these conditions. She gave me an affirmative answer that she was okay with these conditions. When our evening came to a close, Enne quietly informed me that she would be sending us on our way with the gift of a chicken for our evening meal on Sunday.

Sunday started out with a very warm bucket shower for all of us. It felt so good to be clean. At breakfast, Pastor Wihale was giving me a hard time for not eating more than one egg. I explained that my cholesterol was high and that many of my father’s relatives died at my age of heart attacks. The son of the district pastor had traveled with his father that morning to help to translate his father’s sermon. His name was Crispo. Crispo listened to my explanation to Pastor Wihale. Pastor Wihale suggested that I eat the two eggs and then run around outside to get some exercise. Crispo immediately asked me, “So, do you think you are going to live forever.” A reminder of what a fatalistic outlook many Tanzanians have! Why practice preventative health when you could easily die of pneumonia or an auto mobile accident, malaria, typhoid, etc.?!

The choir was all decked out in red and yellow kangas that they had made into “robes” that went over their street clothes. They were all made differently, but they were all made of the same fabric. Some of the women had the loveliest headdresses on. We proceeded into the church behind them. Peweni attempted to translate some of the district pastor’s sermon for us. Then Peweni read the letter that Pastor Jan had emailed to me. Dan had googled Swahili translate, so she read the translation afterwards. She had some difficulty reading the Swahili translation, so Dan explained how the translation had been obtained. Realizing how he had done this, Pastor Wihale immediately burst out laughing. He is so jovial and yet he is very sincere and caring as well. He and Richard had a great time together and he made Joan and Richard feel very much at home. He had instructed us to introduce them to the congregation as the true guests because we are no longer guests in Kising’a. We are apparently supposed to think of it as a second home. (Although, they still won’t let us work while we are there!) Following lunch, we had a lengthy goodbye with the church elders and Enne came to Pastor Wihale’s house with TWO chickens – one for us and one for Joan and Richard. Joan and Richard gave theirs to John Mhekwa and Dan and I gave our chicken to Sele, the gardener at the house where we live. John’s chicken was eaten that night and Sele told us that he was going to raise it for the eggs. Apparently he is raising pigs at his grandmother’s place as well. (Prior to leaving for Kising’a on Friday morning, Dan went back to the house for the videos that he had forgotten and when he arrived back at the house he found Sele’s mother here and she told him that she was hungry. Dan gave her some food. I think that the next time that I see her that I will give a small amount of money for food. One cannot help but form a bond with these people and their families. Your heart just breaks when you realize how much we have and how little they have!

Sue

Good to be back in Iringa

We left for Tanzania Friday night Sept 23rd having dinner with my sister and brother-in-law at the Downtown Woodfire Grill for a nice steak before going to the airport. Our cars are nicely covered in storage between BMW and Mercedes Limos so they will feel at home while we are gone. Claire, who stayed at our house last year, and her friend Amy will be at our house watching Paka and Mickey. (Our family expanded when we found Paka in a tree behind our house for a couple days. Paka is cat in Swahili and she is a very nice cat)

This time we are going with another couple, Richard and Joan, from Shepherd of the Valley in Eagan. Our first trip to Tanzania was with Joan and this is the first trip for Richard. Richard was going to teach Physics (like I was going to teach Chemistry) but now that the science program is delayed, he will teach a couple Math courses and I will teach a couple Computer Science courses that I taught last year. Joan is a retired Biology teacher and will be looking for areas to work with students. Sue was going to teach in a new nursing school but that program has been delayed until March (a recurring theme) so she too will be looking for other opportunities, hopefully together with Joan.

We have been back in Iringa for almost a week now getting settled in to the house. Our trip was good and all our bags made it. Kenyan Airways was very nice and it was good to get into Dar at 9 in the morning. We hired our taxi driver for the day to take us downtown for lunch and to a wood carvers market for the people traveling with us to see. A group from Arizona came in that evening and we all shared a bus to Iringa the next day. The 8 hour trip took 12 because of stops for radiator repair (first with a bar of soap, then super glue mixed with sand and finally epoxy) Such unplanned stops have benefits visiting with children along the road or one stop where we could get a cold beer (not Peter the driver, he happened to find his brother in the town and both were under the bus working on the radiator).

Richard and Bo interacting with the children who stopped to see what was going on. Two older boys ran off to get water for us. The water was dirty and went right into the radiator (and out the bottom).

The gardens at the house are even more extensive this year and we have ripe strawberries. This is the dry season and our well watered gardens are an oasis that attracts a lot of birds. The Region water engineer, who is a friend, visited us and noted "You use a lot of water here" so I guess he views the gardens differently.

Sue enjoying a beer looking over at Tumaini, the building under construction will be the new science building.


We are also using the volunteer car and I am readjusting to using a stick, driving a big car on the left on crowded roads.


Town is full of jacaranda trees with full purple blooms. This is our first time visiting this time of year and the trees are beautiful. They are dropping their blossoms now so will be bare soon.

Classes start October 10th and next week we will be getting organized for the term. I have met a couple times with the staff at Global Outreach about digital content for education in their computer labs. Two of the staff are Tumaini IT graduates and one was my student. I also will be working with Bo, Teri, and Mathew on water projects for St Paul Partners. Teri is a former Peace Corps Volunteer we hired for 6 months and Mathew is our Tanzanian Project Manager in Iringa. You can read about some of these projects at the blog.

We have met several people in town who will be teaching at Tumaini and it looks like we will have a fun time working together to support education. Sue is a little disappointed about the delay in the nursing program but on the other hand this means that she can find projects in Iringa and not have to travel to Ilula so much. Hopefully she can get together with nursing staff from an associated school south of here and help plan the books and curriculum to prepare.

Digital Media for Education

Tanzanian secondary schools typically have very limited resources for things like books and laboratories. Many schools, even in remote locations, have generators that they run in the evening to give students additional study time. This trip I brought about 90 GB of digital content for secondary education with the plan to investigate possible projector options that could be used in a school in a village that could recharge batteries.

Much of the content I brought was assembled by a group of engineers from Cisco for developing countries. Their project is called the Rachel Initiative for "Remote Areas Community Hotspots for Education and Learning". They have a page for browsing most of their content and provide access to all the content files. I also have been collecting short videos of science experiments and explanations as a way to introduce experiments that would be very difficult to do in a village school. I have only about 50 videos so far and have started indexing them to the Tanzanian syllabus for Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. English is the language of instruction in Secondary School and most students struggle to learn English as they try to learn their subjects at the same time. I collected some free audio books from Librivox with the hope that they might help practice listening to English while having some interesting content including classic short stories, bible stories, and the entire new testament.

Collecting content is easy because there is so much available in a country with good internet access. Here in Tanzania though, internet connection is rare in schools and expensive. This content can be supplied to a village school in the form of DVD disks or preloaded on computers. I brought a 30 lumen Samsung pico projector that can play content from a media card without a computer that I had planned to use for the science videos. Testing this at Kilolo Secondary school made it clear that 30 lumens is not enough and the built in speaker is too weak. Fortunately, Ron Reed of Kilolo Star who is also interested in video for schools had brought the Optima Playtime projector, a 50 lumen projector that has a good built in speaker. He rigged up 12 volt battery packs from a drill that can be recharged and play the projector for an hour and a half. I think this solution, in combination with a laptop computer which will be available at most schools, and/or a DVD player will be the best solution and plan to take it to Village Schools next week to evaluate.

I met with Global Outreach who places computers in schools and has a learning center here in Iringa for both teachers and students and gave them a hard drive with all of the content. I have also given sets of DVDs to the director of education for Iringa Diocese schools and will visit Village Schools. The goal for this trip is to learn about a good option, return to the land of fast internet connections and collect more content, and maybe find a grant to provide projectors and content to a number of schools as a trial. I think the projector that Ron Reed had found will be the way to go until more technology comes along and for only a couple hundred dollars per school, teachers could have an excellent resource to help them teach. (Teachers will learn from this content as well)

Shika na Mikono is project for providing low cost science activities for village schools that I have also made a connection with. They are having a workshop of Tanzanian teachers in Morogorro along with a handful of Peace Corps Volunteers this week. Aron Walker is a second term PCV who is leading this effort and he has moved to Iringa to work with Klerruu Teachers college. Aron is interested in video content as well and he and I plan to visit Village Schools together. I created a web page for them where they are starting to assemble activities that will be put into a Latex document. It has been a great trip for this project already and I am looking forward to seeing what we learn at Madisi.

Kilolo Star Vocational School

Our partners in Kising'a decided this year to send all new sponsored students to Kilolo Star Vocational school. 12 students are attending in Kilolo, about 25 km from Kising'a, and studying tailoring, carpentry, and masonry as well as learning some english and introduction to computers. Kilolo Star was founded by Ron Reed, a public attorney from California, who designed his own drilling rig and started a well drilling school and operation. Both the vocational school and well drilling are heavily subsidized by Ron as he gets them established and sustainable. I have been fortunate to overlap with Ron this trip and we have been working together on video content for secondary schools, well rehabilitation business models, and well drilling. Kilolo Star drilled the Ihimbo dispensary wells for St Paul Partners. I visited Kilolo Star today with Ron and a video crew doing a documentary for PBS.

The students were all hard at work the whole time we were there and I met with the computer teacher and helped set up some Kiswahili basic computer guides that she can use to teach her students. Students continue at Kilolo Star for 2 years and should be learning a valuable skill that they can use for employment.

Kilolo Star Website

Blog of last years visit to Kilolo Star

5 of our sponsored Kising'a students


The sewing machines hard at work. Chapa kazi


Tracing a pattern, looks like for a school uniform


The boy tightening the vice is from Kising'a


Gluing primary school desks


Computer lab with XP, 500 MB RAM, 2 GHz P4, 35 GB HD machines

Acacia Pharmacy

I got to Iringa March 5th and have had good luck meeting people and preparing for several projects. Tomorrow I will go to the village of Image to inspect a well location that I brought a submersible pump to install. We are contracting the help of a very good water engineer here in Iringa. Image also has a secondary school with computers from Global Outreach and I am bringing digital resources for science too.

Our partnership has been supporting the dispensary in Kising'a by bringing medical supplies. LCP sent money with me to do this again. Today, Dr Saga, who stayed at our house in October with his wife Dora, took me to Acacia Pharmacy to purchase a standard list of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies that he prepared for dispensaries. This is the rainy season which means more malaria. The supply list has about 54 different items and we purchased a year's supply of medications for a dispensary serving more than 5000 people for 1.3 million shillings ($900).

I will be going to a second well site on Saturday in Ipalamwa and Kising'a is on the way so I will be able to deliver the supplies and hopefully stay over in Kising'a if public transportation to return is available. It has been amazing how plans have fallen into place so I hope the good luck continues for my 4 weeks here.

This is what 1.4 million shillings looks like. You do not put it in your wallet. The 10,000 shilling note is Tanzania's largest denomination worth about $7.50.


Dr Saga and the Acacia Manager who was preparing the 5 page hand written invoice.



Three people were assembling the pharmaceuticals and packing them into boxes. The woman was embarrassed to be in the picture but I can see that she is smiling so I think it was ok.



Acacia Pharmacy is named after a famous type of African tree with 1 inch thorns that put buckthorn to shame. It is a very nice store where you can get anything you would want from a pharmacy.



We went to Agape Stationery to photo copy the invoice pages with copies for the dispensary, the diocese, and the government district medical officer since Kising'a is a government dispensary. Power was out this afternoon as it has been every two or three days because of rationing hydroelectric power with low water levels. No problem for Agape, they pull out a generator out front and keep the copier humming. Notice the warm African greeting between Dr Saga and his pastor from Ilula who just happened to come by.




The boxes delivered to Iringa Lutheran Centre where I am staying. Fortunately, I was just upgraded to the honeymoon suite so I have plenty of space. It is good that I should be in Kising'a Saturday night because the suite is needed for more fitting guests.