Another month on

It has been a day of tragedies.  First I listened to Melbourne playing Collingwood.  Then the Essendon versus Bulldogs game put my misery into perspective.  And now, we’re just reading about a true tragedy.  More than sixty Tanzanians have been killed when an overturned petrol tanker caught fire.  Most of the victims will be pikipiki (motorbike taxi) riders trying to catch the leaking petrol to use themselves.  Pikipiki riders make about 10,000 Tanzanian shillings a week - around A$6 - so free petrol would be a great attraction.  Unfortunately one of them forgot to put out his cigarette first. (I wonder which story will get the most time on tomorrow morning's news bulletin?

Poverty leads to people taking risks and lack of education compounds the problem.  Then the fatalism that leads people to say ‘God’s Will’ means there is no change as the true cause does not get addressed.  Having daily experience of Tanzania’s poor roads, unroadworthy vehicles and appalling drivers which traffic police seem unwilling or unable to challenge I have no doubt that today’s tragedy is one that will surely be repeated.

If you are a regular reader you’ll have noticed little activity (actually none!) on the blog recently.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy - I truly have! - but I’m going through a ‘treading water’ phase waiting for feedback to see what direction to go next.  So nothing interesting to report. I could give you a run down on Tanzania’s tax system and send you my outline of a 10 lesson course on Running a Small Business - let me know if you’re having trouble sleeping.

In this job you hope what you do will be sustainable.  There’s no point going off on your own inventing wonderful things if the ‘yes, that’s good’ is an African ‘yes’ that means ‘no, not really useful at all’.  So I keep planting seeds and waiting to see what is watered, or maybe planting bombs and waiting to see what explodes!  My Running a Small Business lesson notes have been sprinkled around and I’m awaiting interest - someone who will say “I’d like to teach that!” and mean it.

I did have an interesting experience during the mid-year break going to the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), a huge teaching hospital in Moshi, with two of our students who are being fitted for prosthetic legs.  KCMC trains doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.  It has one of the largest and most highly regarded prosthetic limb laboratories and training facilities in Africa.  Our boys were live models for 5 students who all made moulds of their stumps using gauze and plaster of Paris. They had to go back the next day when the moulds had hardened to see which was most comfortable - direct assessment of the students’ work! - and now are each waiting for their new leg to be finished.  Then they’ll be fitted, given instructions on their use and care, and be trained in therapy exercises to get them walking again.  Very exciting.  (Harking back to paragraph 1, both young men have had an above-the-knee amputation as the result of motor vehicle accidents!)

Students admiring the cattle

In the vegie plot

The students are back now from their month-long mid-year break. The beginning of term has been messy with a whole-day excursion to Nane Nane, the agricultural show, on Wednesday then the Nane Nane public holiday on Thursday.  Next week we’ll have the Islamic celebration Eid al Hajj, a public holiday (probably Monday, but only announced the night before, argh!!) and a visit from Femme International to talk to the girls and women about menstrual health which could also be a day long event.  My maths classes will start again next week too which I’m looking forward to.  I need to trial some of my new maths worksheets to see what needs tweaking.

Over the next few weeks we should also be visiting a lot of the past students to see how they are managing - all students are followed up for at least 3 years and I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say about what else we should add to the 18 month program. 

I'm adding these photo of the Leopard Tortoise we saw at Kili Golf Estate on Thursday - Steve and i had a birding excursion there on the Nane Nane Day public holiday with four young Tanzanian birdwatchers from the group Birding for Life.

If you have the opportunity to visit the national parks why wouldn’t you?  We’re lucky enough to have time and resources so we had two nights in Tarangire NP.

From our side of Arusha it’s just a 2 hour drive to the main gate of Tarangire NP but we went down the luxury (expensive!) route of two nights full board at the Tarangire Safari Lodge which is inside the park. Look at Steve’s blog for lovely pictures.  We’ll have a weekend at Lake Manyara NP next weekend to celebrate my birthday so watch for more pics from there in a week’s time.

More soon, love Jenny