We're Growing!

Minnesota International Health Volunteers arrived in Karatu last January and as we approach our first anniversary, we’re growing. Our Tanzania Child Survival Project now has 18 full time staff.

Some of our incredible staff:

We’ve out grown our first office, and there’s a team hard at work on the new office!

The new space will have a training room, a resource library for the community and plenty of office space. Move in date is January 1st.

Statistics

In sub-Saharan Africa, one child dies of malaria every thirty seconds.

I’m working on an article for an African newspaper about the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative, which hopes to reduce malaria-related deaths by fifty percent. I was trying to make this statistic positive, to show what a difference programs funded by the initiative, like MIHV’s new Malaria Communities Project will make.

They will make a difference. And if they halve malaria deaths it will be huge.

But a child will still die of malaria every minute.

African Time

Recently, I was having dinner in Nairobi with Father Joe and his friend Charles. We were discussing when we would leave the next morning.

Joe: Well we want to be there at ten, so we should leave at eight.
Charles: There’s no way it will take us two hours to get there!
Joe: But we need to leave time for the people we meet on the way.

Shades of Black

“Those kids are sooo Ugandan” says Mercy, one of MIHV’s Tanzanian staff, looking over my shoulder as I sort through some photos on my computer.

“How can you tell?”

“Well, they’re darker. And look at those cheeks!”

Mercy’s skin is lighter, but not by much, and I’ve met Ugandans with surprisingly light skin.

“You can really tell if someone is Ugandan or Kenyan or Tanzanian just by looking at them?”

She nods. So I sift through my pictures, avoiding shots of women in traditional clothing, which would give away the region.

“Ugandan.”

“Kenyan.”

“Ugandan.”

“Tanzanian.”

“Ugandan.”

“Kenyan… oh no Ugandan. Definitely Ugandan.”

She’s right every time.

As I’m walking home later, I try to see the differences in the children I pass, but I can’t. As an outsider, there is so much that I just can’t see.

Karibu Karatu

After almost two months in Uganda, working on MIHV’s Child Spacing Program and new Malaria initiative, I’ve moved to Karatu, Tanzania, a district in northern Tanzania that is home to MIHV’s Child Survival Project.

In Karatu, where 112 of every 1,000 children born die before their fifth birthday, MIHV's project is promoting maternal newborn care and child spacing and working to control malaria, diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infections. Over the next five years,the project will help over 100,000 people. The project reaches the community through groups like Survive and Thrive, a support group that enforces healthy behaviors for young single mothers and MAISHA (Men Active in Sustaining Health, MAISHA means "life" in Swahili). MAISHA works with taxi drivers in the region to convey health messengers to their passengers and trains the drivers to assist with emergency transport to clinics.

Karibu Tanzania!

Kitui

Driving through southern Kenya, Uganda’s green expanse of banana trees and dark red soil is replaced by sparse fields, home to the occasional baobab tree, whose twisted arms reach up to the scorching sun. Here, the dirt is thirsty, khaki colored.

Kitui, is one of the most arid regions in Kenya. Locals told me it hasn’t rained since April. Some claimed that a few drops came down in July.

I was able to spend a week in Kenya, visiting a dear friend, Father Joe. We traveled from Nairobi, across Kenya, to his parish, and later to his childhood home in Mwingi, and to Tsavo, a huge wildlife reserve.

As we’re driving I ask Father Joe to stop, I need to stand on the ground, so I can understand what I’m seeing in a way that’s only possible when your feet are on the earth. “You are so lucky to live in this beautiful place” I say over and over. “It is very dry” he replies, over and over.

Some people say that beauty is painful. Though I suspect they’re more often talking about dieting or cosmetic surgery than the Chyulu Mountains, as I look out at those dry mountains, terraced by farmers in a feeble attempt to support their families, as we drive over bridges that cross dusty river beds, I see so much beauty; so much pain.

Lake Mburo

I spent my last weekend in Uganda at Lake Mburo National Park… no lions, tigers or bears, but lots of impala, baboons and zebras!

I especially liked the zebras.

“…Zebras have a lot of stress because they have to flee from lions on a regular basis, but after the crisis they mostly just graze calmly. People, on the other hand, spend too much of their downtime worrying about the lions in their lives.” –NY Times

In the Southwest Journal

A banana tree with a few stalks is stronger

On both sides of the road, going on forever it seems, are fields of banana trees. And as we drive to Nanseko, a village in rural Uganda, we avoid the deep ruts in the dirt road by swerving from one side and then to the other, veering so close that the long banana tree leaves brush the car's window.

Check out the full article on MIHV in Monday's Southwest Journal.

Rainy Season

“It will rain every day now,” Robert tells me.

On Sunday, the rains came along with the wind, blowing the fronds off palm trees and uprooting a hibiscus plant in the yard.

The rainy season has started.

In Uganda there are two rainy seasons – a longer one, lasting from March through May, and a shorter one in October and November.

On Thursday, the rain started softly, the pregnant clouds just drip-dripping, but by the time we reached the bottom of Mbuya Hill, near the Kampala office, the rain was coming down hard. As we started up the hill the car lurched back and forth as Peter, the driver, tried to avoid the rivers of ochre mud rushing down the road. As the car rocked from one side, it jolted, stalled, stopped and then started again.A plastic rosary swung back and forth, looping around the rear-view mirror. As rain covered the windshield, the blue beads and tiny cross danced to Peter’s reggae music.

Religion seems to show up a lot here. Rainstorms. Supermarkets. Introductions.

When I first met Lilian, who I would room with for about three weeks, one of the first questions she asked me was “Are you a Christian?” A little confused, I nodded. She smiled, approvingly. I had just won some serious brownie points. “And what Church?” She was visibly disappointed when I said “Catholic.”

When I was later introduced to MIHV’s Mubende driver, Ronnie said, “This is Mwange. He’s a Muslim.”

The street merchants market light-up pictures of the Virgin Mary to the cars stopped in traffic. And Eid-ul-Fitr, the last Friday of Ramadan, is a national holiday.

Sunday morning, as I walked to church with Passy, a friend who I stayed with this past weekend, she explained, “Sometimes it’s hard to get people to go to church. They don’t know that they can do no work without God.”

The night before, I had fallen asleep to Passy’s children reciting their prayers, the Luganda words flowing together into a holy stream.

Unsure of my own faith, being surrounded by such certainty is at once comforting and disconcerting.

Now the beads stop swinging. The car has stopped. “It’s out of gas,” says Peter. We’re two houses away from the MIHV office, but it’s pouring. Peter turns off the engine and the reggae and we sit, quietly, trying to discern anything beyond the windshield. Peter puts the car in neutral, and we start to roll back down the hill.

“What are you doing!?”
“Oh, it will start if we go backwards,” explains Peter.

We roll down past the offices, the gated houses and near the bottom of the hill, Peter tries again. It doesn’t start. And now we’re at the bottom of the hill.

So I get out of the car and run. The water rushes down and over my ankles as I make my way through the henna colored dirt-rivers, up the hill.

Soaking, I run and run and laugh and laugh, because here I am in Uganda, crossing the red sea.

Lamadan

For the last month, during Ramadan (which often becomes "Lamadan," because in African English "r" and "l" are pronounced the same, making my name often "Sal"), men in long white galabiyyas and hats and women in hijabs color the streets as they make their way to mosque.

Under a Mango Tree

This is Sister. Her Christian name is Mary, but Sister is the name used for older Ugandan women who have earned great respect in their communities. Sister’s whole life radiates a deep reverence for the dignity and wellbeing of the people in her community

Sister’s father wanted her to be a teacher, but she insisted she wanted to be a nurse. Nursing doesn’t feel like work, she explained. Along a shelf in her home rests a piece of painted wood with the words carefully carved, “Do your work not for mere pay, but from a real desire to serve.” (1 Peter 5:2). After working for seven years as a bedside nurse, Sister went back to school to be a nurse trainer, fulfilling both her and her father’s dream in combining teaching and nursing.

Twelve years ago Sister was hired by MIHV. Although she has worked in several positions, today she is the Deputy Country Director and the Family Planning Coordinator. She’s a busy woman; she’s the leader of her church’s Christian Women’s Fellowship and a human rights activist, having trained several years ago as a paralegal, she works in outreach programs to spread awareness to rural Ugandans about their rights.

Sister raised three children of her own. She lost her oldest son, Andrew, to sickle cell anemia at seventeen. Her youngest daughter, Annette, graduated from Makerere University last weekend. Her older daughter, Esther, will give birth to Sister’s first grandchild any day.

Sister is not wealthy. “Sincerely,” she said, “I’ve had to take out bank loans to get by.” Yet she would never turn away someone in need. Norman, 6, and Shakira, 14, are only the most recent children to take up residence in Sister’s house. Over the past several years, Sister has taken in and covered the school fees of a number of her brother’s children, orphans and even the daughter of one of MIHV’s Ssembabule guards.

Like many of MHIV’s staff, Sister has deep roots in the community and is nourished by her faith. With roots and faith, MIHV’s passionate staff are deeply committed to the health and wellbeing of others. No one would dispute that Uganda is materially a poor country, and yet I have never received richer hospitality. “We don’t have a lot,” said Sister, “but what we have, we share.”

“With committed staff you can set up a clinic under a mango tree.” –Helen Epstein

Jesus, etc.

Many Ugandan establishments endorse a higher power.

Organized by Collective Disorder

In grade school, I went everywhere as one segment of a straight line of classmates, dutifully ducky-ing along behind my teachers. I remember one teacher would play a game with my class as we walked from the art room to the lunchroom or back to our classroom, surprising us by turning around from her position at the head of the line to inspect our line. We loved the game, and giggled as we carefully followed the child in front of us to ensure that all twenty-one of us stood neatly like dominos.

I don’t think Ugandan kids play that game.


Ugandans don’t order themselves like Americans. There are few zebra crossings (crosswalks) here and where there are, people don’t use them. Rather, people cross four lanes of traffic wherever they please. And when I say lanes, I really mean a road three cars wide, that has boda-bodas (taxi motorcycles) weaving in and out of the cars and matatus (mini-buses), because there are no lanes.

In churches, a collection basket isn’t passed around. Instead, there is one large basket at the front of the church and at a designated time in the service, everyone gets up and squeezes past the others to put their donation in. At communion, people don’t get up row by row or form a line. There is a holy free for all towards the priest and the little round wafers.

Last week, while I was in town, a man stole something, or at least that’s what someone said. In retribution for the theft, the shopkeeper threw a rock at him. Another man joined and then six more and soon there were thirty some people throwing rocks at one man as he ran away, stopping occasionally to deflect the rocks with a large stick.

One Month

This is a letter I sent to many of my friends and family a few days ago. A few people suggested I post it as well.

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow I will have been in Uganda for a month.

Every morning I wake up at seven to gospel and/or Christian rock music (I am rooming with a Born-Again Christian who likes to start her day off with a healthy helping of Jesus). I spend most of my day traveling between villages visiting and interviewing people and in the evenings I write profiles and articles. I love the work I’m doing here and I feel like it’s been a very good “match” – I am getting so much out of living here and think in turn I’m also able to give a lot to MIHV in return.

I am deeply grateful to the people I meet everyday who welcome me into their homes and tell me their stories. I spend six or seven hours a day sitting with people and having conversations about their family, education, aspirations for their children, their sex lives, marriages and separations, religion, childhoods, reasons for using (or not using) contraception, and their goals for their communities.

Today Specioza, a 50-year-old woman, brought out a blue plastic photo album filled with photographs of her ten children. Another, Benedict, told me how while giving birth to her fifth child, labor was obstructed and her uterus ruptured. That child, who died in birth, would have been her first with her husband. As she told me her story, her husband picked up his three-year-old daughter from his second wife, who he married shortly after Benedict’s hysterectomy.

Sometimes it’s a bit strange, going up to strangers and asking them what type of contraceptives they use and why, how their religion affects their decisions, how being one of three wives affects them emotionally or their children financially. But when you get past the initial fear of asking such personal, at times painful, questions, you realize it is a glorious opportunity to be invited to ask these questions. It is an opportunity to begin to know a country, one woman, one family, one story at a time. Sometimes, when I’m walking along the little paths that weave past mud houses and through the fields of banana trees, I inhale Uganda and try to exhale gratitude.

I cried for the first time during an interview recently while talking to a 14-year-old girl named Fatumah. Fatumah’s parents separated when she was an infant and the family lost contact with the mother. Fatumah’s father raised her and her siblings. When Fatumah was 11 her father was diagnosed with AIDS. The girl’s older siblings had moved away and Fatumah became his full time care taker. He died a year ago.


School started for Ugandan children about two weeks ago and when I spoke with Fatumah, a few days before school would begin, I asked her what grade she was going into. She explained to me that she was kicked out of school last July because of overdue school fees (Uganda has universal primary education, but school fees for secondary schooling can be prohibitive, even for families where both parents are living). She plans to spend the fall working her family’s small farm to raise money so she can go back to school. When I asked Elijah, one of MIHV’s Ugandan staff if he thought she could feasibly do this, he said it was unlikely she would ever go back to school. “Other expenses will come up,” he explained. “Who will pay for the paraffin for the lamps?”

I asked Fatumah how much she owed the school. She owes 15,000 Ush for the construction of a new latrine, 5,000 Ush for lunch, 14,000 Ush for her uniform, 3,000 Ush in exam fees and 7,000 Ush for school supplies. When I realized 44,000 Ush (about $27) is keeping a 14-year-old from going to school, I started crying. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to cry in the middle of an interview, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be any good at this job if life here didn’t make me cry sometimes.

Take care,
Sarah