MOSHI, TANZANIA         April 2013

Susie O’Kane, who is the Director of Organizational Learning at Mosaic, has conducted training of the BCC staff since the first centers were open in 2008.  She visited Moshi for almost three weeks recently to observe the training by Tanzanian staff and to perform some training herself, as well as consultation.  Some of the BCC staff members have been trained to be trainers by Susie in recent years.  As a result, their understanding of the material and their skills in training others are excellent.  Susie has also tapped into local expertise of staff from CCBRT (assessment and rehabilitation of children) and KCMC (medical center & school) to share in the training.  BCC staff has also provided training to the Imani Vocational School staff where some students from BCC attend. The training covers a wide range of topics such as an introduction to working with families, occupational therapy exercises, first aid, developing routines at centers, proactive management skills, and more.

Trainings have also been performed, especially in recent years, by Mosaic international staff on the ground, Mosaic fellows who have valuable expertise, but also perform duties outside of it, and volunteers (most of whom are post graduate) from several different countries who have a variety of skills to share.  Trainings take place in different locations and with different numbers of recipients.  This includes, but is not limited to, individual centers, a family’s home, or a larger community location.  The recipients may be a small group of parents learning about micro-credit loans, staff of a center learning about physical therapy techniques for a particular child, or instructing a parent about ways of feeding his/her child to help with successful swallowing and prevention of choking.

Mosaic and BCC strive to make sure that training activities are culturally appropriate, efficient, and cost effective.  New or different philosophies and techniques are always welcome, but need to be meaningful to the culture and environment.

The pictures show training sessions with BCC staff, by Susie, and trained trainers from BCC and the community.

Moshi, Tanzania      April 2013

Greetings readers!  I will start the account of my day yesterday by saying that Tanzania is in the middle of its rainy season.  Also, as some of you know, my computer no longer allows me to use the internet, so I work off line, save on a flash drive, and go to an internet café.

With that in mind, the following paragraphs will put things in perspective in the Tanzanian culture and environment.  It had rained all night and was raining most of yesterday.  I went to two day centers yesterday morning, the second of which I left with my shoes weighted down with very sticky gooey mud and my walker wheels clogged with it.  However, the two visits were worthwhile and productive.

I then went to a fairly dependable internet café which is located in a small building on a large multi-use property.  Looking like a mud ball, I knew that I could not enter any of the buildings since I would have left mud everywhere.  I asked staff (most of whom I am acquainted} if there was an outdoor faucet somewhere, and I was immediately taken to one by an employee who worked with me for about 20 minutes to scrape the mud off the walker wheels, brakes, etc. and rinse by hand. I was then sort of fit to enter the building where I discovered that people attending a large Africa-wide conference were having lunch.  The first thing I noticed about them was how clean they were.  They were friendly and interested to know about me as I imagined them thinking “how do these westerners get so filthy?”  I was even offered lunch!

I moved on to the internet café where I was delighted to find the electricity and internet up and running!  My manager/technician buddy was there, so I thought maybe I was going to have a productive few hours even with their rickety computers!  Well, two electricity failures and three computers later, I had not accomplished anything!  I was trying to attach blog entries to emails as well as pictures.  We kept changing computers, thinking that a virus alert that I received was a problem there.  But no, a scan of my flash drive showed a virus in a document on it that had been transferred from a local person’s computer in March.  It infected any writing that I had done since that date.  The scan dumped the infected documents.  Then the electricity went off again.  My computer buddy and I just shook our heads and laughed because of the absurdity of it!  As I was leaving he asked me where had I been that made me so muddy!  I gave him “a look” over my glasses which made him laugh.  So I called a taxi and went home.

The “but” in my title is there because of how I’ve seen and heard Tanzanians during this rainy season and failures of electricity and technology.  This is the first true rainy season that has occurred during our three years of coming here.  There had been some rain, but not enough to keep the country out of a drought.  So this daily and nightly rain is cause for much joy in Tanzania.  All the hard work in the fields and related work has paid off. The maize and beans that provide much needed work and food are growing like crazy!  The trees that produce bananas, coconuts, mangoes, and avocados look so fresh and healthy.  What all this means is that there is plenty of water for all living things.  Water has not run out as in the past two years, so it’s available for drinking, cooking, washing, and cleaning.  As one person has said to me “water is life here.”

Yes, plentiful water for people far outweighs the inconveniences of mud, washed out roads, going barefoot to keep shoes clean, carrying children instead of having them have a slow difficult walk, or attempting an impossible wheelchair ride.  Being late for school or work or missing a day is understood.  Interruptions in cell phone service and electricity are tolerated better.  A large percentage of people do not have computers, except maybe at work and a large portion of Moshi’s population does not have electricity at home so …

Many, many people seem to have umbrellas and walk to their destinations.  At restaurants or hotels, such as yesterday, a large table umbrella is used to ensure a drier walk for several people at a time.  I have to say that seeing many pairs of legs under a huge moving umbrella is a comical sight to me, but very practical!  The dala dala (an overcrowded and often dilapidated commuter van) drivers are more likely to wait for persons trying to get to the stop.  Motorcycle taxis provide hair-raising rides in muddy conditions. 

I have learned so much from the overall patience and kindness, resourcefulness and unruffled approach of people in Moshi in their day-to-day interactions and responsibilities in what appear to be very challenging conditions to me. 

So today is a new day!  At the end of yesterday, I could afford to call a taxi to take me to a dry home with a shower and bed, and plenty of food.  Far too many people in Tanzania do not have that. 

March 2013

Photos were recently e-mailed to us from Motivation Romania of the construction of a dining room between two shipping containers.  The building is in the village of Buda, near Bucharest. 

We just had to share one of them that shows workers constructing the roof.   It is so representative of Motivation!

March2013

Those of you who are starting to thaw out from winter may not want to see any more snow for a while. However the closest we get to snow here is by looking at it on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro from far away. With our summer starting to role into autumn, the nights become slightly cooler. The days are still scorchers, but the rains have started for which Tanzanians are very thankful. When it’s raining and a bit cooler at night, we know that snow is probably falling high up on the mountain.

Last weekend we were fortunate to have a clear vantage point at about 4400 feet to see the fresh fallen snow from the night before. We have to show off “our” snow, so please enjoy the few pictures!

A young friend in the pictures below loves having the opportunity to be of help at the BCC Center in Pasua where he attends. Washing the dishes is his specialty and, according to him, his favorite thing to do. Having an audience and a camera pointed at him makes it all the better, as it would with any child.

So with great flourish, he begins by dipping each dish in the tub of sudsy water and giving them a quick swipe with his hand, which may or may not clean it. Then the dish is dipped in the rinsing tub. If it passes his inspection, it is then waved around in the air to dry. If not, the process is repeated.

Then he tries to set the clean dish on a ledge or a gravel area, but sometimes it lands in the dirt or it gets knocked to the ground by a passing chicken that pecks at it. The dirt on the freshly washed dish is then wiped off with his hand or dipped in the rinsing tub again. As for the chicken, it is shooed away by a couple of bangs on a small metal pan or throwing it at it.

Even though the whole process is not captured in pictures, try to imagine this young dishwasher adding more soap to the water after every few dishes, splashing it around with his hands, and then joyfully flinging suds through the air. He finishes by dipping most of the dishes in the rinse water again and stacking them for a staff member to take inside. Wouldn’t any child use a task like this for entertaining an audience!

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

In any country, a traveler may see words or phrases that are an attempt by a business to use a language other than its own with the purpose of being helpful to the visitor.  These translations are often in English and are appreciated by many travelers, including us.  However, every so often we are amused by a word that may simply be a misspelling or the actual choice of words.  I know that travelers to the U.S. have similar experiences when they see some translations in their native languages.

I have listed several examples that we have come across in various countries through the years.  Many are from menus.  Some are easy to figure out and others take a little more imagination.  Just for fun, try figuring out what these are and respond with a note on the blog!  I’ve underlined the words in question.

1. Dog pipes
2. Oat mill
3. Mashroom
4. On a restaurant sign:  saved
5. Rerubbering
6. Sadwich
7. A program: Head Begin
8. A sign in a restaurant:  Kindly Advise to not dosomething – what do you think customers are being asked not to do? 
9. Chicken Chests
10.  On a menu: Indespensable Eatable Plug-ins

Two years ago I wrote an entry about Upendo, a little girl who was unable to walk without assistance. She crawled on the floor sometimes, but preferred to be on her feet, grabbing hold of furniture to steady herself. I lowered the handles on my walker and put her hands on it to see what she would do. To the surprise of everyone present she took off at a pretty fast pace, circling the room over and over again. Last year was much the same. I couldn’t even find a Tanzanian made walker for her to use. They are pretty scarce.

Well, today I went to the Karanga 1 center where she attends. The first thing out of the mouths of the staff after greeting me was “Upendo is walking”! Not only is she walking, she is doing a little dancing. She is so proud of herself! I also saw each of her parents because they were present next door to apply for micro-loans. Needless to say, they were thrilled!

Here are two pictures of Upendo.

- Barb

January 27, 2013

The focus of the blog entry on this first week back in Tanzania is on the current activities of one of the eleven centers of Building a Caring Community (BCC), Msaranga.  The centers provide developmental, social, and educational services to neighborhood children with intellectual disabilities.

Until the past few weeks, the Msaranga Center was located in a small crowded building with very little outdoor area for the children and virtually no shade through the day. The adults and children were falling over one another.  Now the center has relocated to the property of the Msaranga Lutheran Parish Church, a larger space that is shaded and has a green grassy area.  Although not wheelchair accessible, the center, the bathrooms, and cooking space are more spread out, but within easy reach of each other.  One simple ramp is already in the works which will make two of the areas accessible very soon. 

Something that is missing from the former center building is the creative drawings on the walls, painted by volunteers who have passed through over time.  The BCC staff person who heads this center, Janeth, is receiving a surprise this week.  Five people, including the two Mosaic fellows and BCC/Mosaic staff, showed up armed with cleaning and painting supplies.  The children were moved to the shady and breezy outdoor area and the work started.  We caught Janeth cleaning and painting also when she could spare time from the children.  The truth is that she would never want to be a non-participant in anything!  This weekend, a few volunteers will paint creative artwork on the walls which should really jazz things up!  One more thing … the broken and discolored linoleum from the old center, now too small anyway, must be replaced.  Shopping and pricing are in the plans.

Janeth always has a smile on her face and is known for incorporating music and movement into so many of the day’s activities.  She loves the children, which is evident in everything she does.  It also shows in how the children respond to her.  One of the great benefits of the new location is that another room in the building houses a Montessori kindergarten program, so the beginning of a little informal integration of the children is starting.  Also, four school-age children spend the afternoon at the center following dismissal from school.  At least one is a sibling of a child at the center.  They are invaluable as role models and as helpers.

The following pictures are of the children at Msaranga and a couple are of the painting crew.

Finally the end!  We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions!

January 11, 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!    LA MULTI ANI!   HERI ZA MWAKA MPYA!

So sorry to our readers! Time slipped by and, consequently, so did our blog entries! We truly hope you had joy, good health, and peace during the holidays and that it extends through this New Year. Our thoughts have certainly been with peoples throughout the world whose lives are impacted by poverty, poor health, and violence, including war.

So a quick update on our whereabouts. We departed from Romania on December 23 to return to the States for the holidays. We spent a week with family, a week with friends, as well as visits to doctors and pharmacies to prepare for Tanzania, and the final week in Omaha, Nebraska for meetings with Mosaic colleagues.

We departed for Tanzania on January 14! It’s a very long flight but neither of us gets much sleep because we are so excited about our arrival there.

This past fall in Romania was very busy and productive and enjoyable, as this winter/spring will be in Tanzania! The next blog entry will be posted from Tanzania!

Barb & Rich

December10,2012

The first snow and the last rose today in front of our apartment in Bragadiru, Romania.